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Social and Economic Theories and Pastoral Concerns of a Victorian Archbishop

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Robert S. Dell
Affiliation:
Vice-Principal, Ridley Hall, Cambridge

Extract

John Bird Sumner (1780–1862) established his reputation as an author whilst he was still a young Fellow at Eton, and it was as a reward for his writings that he was appointed in 1820 to a canonry at Durham by bishop Shute Barrington. In 1826 his younger brother, Charles Sumner, was appointed to the bishopric of Llandaff, together with the deanery of St. Paul's, and in the following year was translated to the more lucrative and socially desirable see of Winchester, where he remained until 1869. Charles Sumner's sudden rise from being assistant curate of Highclere, near Newbury, to private chaplain at Carlton House and Royal Librarian, was due to the favourable impression he made on George IV when he was introduced by the Conyngham family, then prominent at Court. In 1828 John Sumner was given the arduous diocese of Chester by the duke of Wellington. It is doubtful whether he would have been thought of for a bishopric without the advocacy of his brother, but he proved to be a vigorous pastoral bishop.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

page 196 note 1 Brown, Ford K., Fathers of the Victorians, Cambridge 1961, 61–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Letters of George IV, ed. Aspinall, A., Cambridge 1938, ii, 425433Google Scholar.

page 196 note 2 Charles James Blomfield, bishop of Chester 1824, translated to London in 1828.

page 196 note 3 Christian Observer (1862), 800, with which cf. the satisfaction felt by the Christian Observer (1848), 213–14.

page 196 note 4 Lord Aberdeen, prime minister in 1853, when moves were afoot, inspired by S. Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, to revive Convocation, described the archbishop to his son the Hon. A. Gordon as a ‘poor, vain, weak, silly creature who they can bully with impunity’: Ashwell, A. R., Life of Samuel Wilberforce, London 1880, i, 161Google Scholar.

page 196 note 5 Ashwell, op. cit., i, 248.

page 197 note 1 The Times, 8 September 1862.

page 197 note 2 A number of letters to Samuel Wilberforce are included in a collection in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

page 197 note 3 Elliott-Binns, L. E., Religion in the Victorian Era, London 1946, 68Google Scholar.

page 197 note 4 Henry Ryder, bishop of Gloucester (1815), translated to Lichneld (1824).

page 197 note 5 S. Wilberforce has been given the whole credit for the improvement in episcopal standards by some; see e.g. Carpenter, S. C., Church and People, London 1959, 258–9Google Scholar.

page 198 note 1 J. B. Sumner, A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, i, Preface xi.

page 198 note 2 See Christian Observer (1817), 101–15 and 175–91 for a review of the work under discussion. The reviewer accepts without comment Sumner's position on social and economic matters and only comments on theological aspects of his work.

page 198 note 3 J. B. Sumner, A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, ii, 32.

page 198 note 4 Ibid., 52.

page 198 note 5 Ibid., 52n.

page 198 note 6 Ibid., 60.

page 199 note 1 Ibid., 61.

page 199 note 2 Ibid., 81.

page 199 note 3 Ibid., 84.

page 199 note 4 Ibid., 84n.

page 199 note 5 Ibid., 86.

page 199 note 6 Ibid., 96.

page 200 note 1 Ibid., 99.

page 200 note 2 Ibid., 102–3.

page 200 note 3 Ibid., 103.

page 200 note 4 Ibid., 103–4.

page 200 note 5 Ibid., 104.

page 200 note 6 Ibid., 105.

page 201 note 1 Ibid., 113.

page 201 note 2 Ibid., 124–125.

page 201 note 3 Ibid., 201.

page 202 note 1 J. B. Sumner, A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, Part III, ii, 318.

page 202 note 2 Ibid., 319.

page 202 note 3 Contrast this attitude with that of George Stringer Bull and those who worked with him in the campaign for the reduction of children's hours of working in the mills to ten hours a day: see Gill, J. V., The Ten Hours Parson, London 1960Google Scholar, and Gill, J. C., Parson Bull of Byerley, London 1963Google Scholar. No doubt conditions had grown much worse by the 1830s.

page 202 note 4 J. B. Sumner, A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, iii, 338.

page 202 note 5 Ibid., 352.

page 202 note 6 Ibid., 341.

page 202 note 7 Ibid., 345.

page 203 note 1 J. B. Sumner, Charge 1829, 23.

page 203 note 2 Ibid., Appendix III.

page 203 note 3 Ibid.

page 203 note 4 J. B. Sumner, Charge 1832, 8.

page 204 note 1 Ibid., Appendix I.

page 204 note 2 Ibid.

page 204 note 3 Carus, W., The Memoirs of the Life of Charles Simeon, London 1847, 638Google Scholar and Hennell, M. M. and Pollard, A. (eds.), Charles Simeon, London 1959, 140Google Scholar.

page 204 note 4 J. B. Sumner, Charge 1832, Appendix IV.

page 204 note 5 Ibid., Appendix V.

page 205 note 1 J. B. Sumner, Charge 1838, 11–12.

page 205 note 2 In 1876 and 1880, but it was not free until 1891.

page 205 note 3 J. B. Sumner, Charge 1844, Apcndix I.

page 206 note 1 Ibid., 14–5.

page 206 note 2 Ibid., 20–1.

page 206 note 3 I am indebted to Dr. W. O. Chadwick for this quotation.

page 206 note 4 J. B. Sumner, Charge 1844, 22 f.

page 207 note 1 J. B. Sumner, Christian Charity, its obligations and objects with reference to the present state of Society—a series of sermons.

page 207 note 2 Ibid., 18.

page 207 note 3 Ibid., 19.

page 207 note 4 Ibid., 22.

page 207 note 5 Ibid., 25–6.

page 207 note 6 Ibid., 26.

page 207 note 7 Ibid., 100–1.

page 208 note 1 Ibid., 101.

page 208 note 2 Ibid., 104.

page 208 note 3 Newman and Keble shared these views. So did Mrs. Alexander, in her hymn—

‘The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them high or lowly,

And ordered their estate’.