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Charles Kingsley

For the British yacht designer, seeCharles Kingsley (yacht designer).For the English tennis player, seeCharles Kingsley (tennis).

Charles Kingsley(12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was abroad churchpriestof theChurch of England,a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated withChristian socialism,theworking men's college,and forminglabour cooperatives,which failed, but encouraged later working reforms.

The Reverend

Charles Kingsley
Born(1819-06-12)12 June 1819
Holne,Devon, England
Died23 January 1875(1875-01-23)(aged 55)
Eversley,Hampshire, England
OccupationClergyman, historian, novelist
NationalityEnglish
Alma mater
Period19th century
GenreSocial Christianity
Literary movementChristian socialism
SpouseFrances Eliza Grenfell
Signature

Life and character

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Caricature byAdriano Cecionipublished inVanity Fairin 1872.

Kingsley was born inHolne,Devon,the elder son of the Reverend Charles Kingsley and his wife, Mary Lucas Kingsley. His brotherHenry Kingsley(1830–1876) and sisterCharlotte Chanter(1828–1882) also became writers. He was the father of the novelistLucas Malet(Mary St. Leger Kingsley, 1852–1931) and the uncle of the traveller and scientistMary Kingsley(1862–1900).

Charles Kingsley's childhood was spent inClovelly,Devon, where his father was curate in 1826–1832 and rector in 1832–1836,[1]and atBarnack,Northamptonshire. He was educated atBristol Grammar SchoolandHelstonGrammar School[2]before studying atKing's College Londonand the University of Cambridge. Charles enteredMagdalene College, Cambridge,in 1838, and graduated first class in classics, and senior optime in 1842.[3][4]He chose to pursue priesthood in the Anglican Church. In 1844, he becameRectorofEversleyinHampshire.In 1859, he was appointed chaplain toQueen Victoria.[5][6]In 1860, he becameRegius Professor of Modern Historyat the University of Cambridge,[5][6]and, in 1861, a private tutor to thePrince of Wales.[5]

In 1869, Kingsley resigned his Cambridge professorship and served from 1870 to 1873 as acanonofChester Cathedral.While there, he founded theChesterSociety for Natural Science, Literature and Art, which was prominent in the establishment of theGrosvenor Museum.[7]In 1872, he agreed to become the 19th president of theBirmingham and Midland Institute.[8]In 1873, he was made a canon ofWestminster Abbey.[5]

Kingsley sat on the 1866 Edward Eyre Defence Committee along withThomas Carlyle,John Ruskin,Charles Dickens,John Tyndall,andAlfred Tennyson,where he supported Jamaican GovernorEdward Eyre's brutal suppression of theMorant Bay Rebellionagainst theJamaica Committee.Kingsley was a friend and colleague ofCharles Darwin.[9]

One of his daughters, Mary St Leger Kingsley, became known as a novelist under the pseudonymLucas Malet.[6] Kingsley's biography, written by his widow in 1877, was entitled,Charles Kingsley, his Letters and Memories of his Life.[6]

Kingsley received letters fromThomas Huxleyin 1860, and sent letters in 1863 discussing Huxley's early ideas onagnosticism.

Death

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Charles Kingsley died of pneumonia on 23 January 1875 at Eversley, Hampshire, aged 55. He was buried there in St. Mary's Churchyard.[10]

Influences and works

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Kingsley's interest in history is shown in several of his writings, includingThe Heroes(1856), a children's book aboutGreek mythology,and several historical novels, of which the best known areHypatia(1853),Hereward the Wake(1865) andWestward Ho!(1855). From his bookThe Heroesthe story ofPerseus, the Gorgon Slayerwas taken and in 1898 republished asThe Story of Perseus and the Gorgon's Head.[11][12]

Kingsley

He was sympathetic to the idea ofevolutionand was one of the first to welcomeCharles Darwin's bookOn the Origin of Species.He had been sent an advance review copy and in his response of 18 November 1859 (four days before the book went on sale) stated that he had "long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species."[13]Darwin added an edited version of Kingsley's closing remarks to the next edition of his book, stating, "A celebrated author and divine has written to me that 'he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'"[14]When a heated dispute lasting three years developed overhuman evolution,Kingsley gently satirised the debate, known as theGreat Hippocampus Question,as the "Great Hippopotamus Question".

Kingsley's concern for social reform is illustrated in his classic,The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby(1863), a tale about a boychimney sweep,which retained its popularity well into the 20th century. The story mentions the main protagonists in the scientific debate over human origins, rearranging his earlier satire as the "great hippopotamus test". The book won aLewis Carroll Shelf Awardin 1963.

Kingsley's chief asset as a novelist lay in his descriptive faculties: the descriptions of South American scenery inWestward Ho!,of theEgyptian desertinHypatia,and of theNorth Devonscenery inTwo Years Ago.American scenery is vividly and truthfully described, in part stemming from his observations during a lecture tour of the United States that he undertook in 1874 and reported to his wife,Francis Eliza Grenfell Kingsley.The letters were later published.[15]He also published his workAt Last,written after he had visited the tropics. His sympathy with children taught him how to gain their interest. His version of the old Greek stories entitledThe Heroes,andWater-babiesandMadam How and Lady Why,in which he deals with popular natural history, take high rank among books for children.[6]Kingsley was influenced byFrederick Denison Maurice,and was close to many Victorian thinkers and writers, including the Scottish writerGeorge MacDonald.

Kingsley was highly critical ofRoman Catholicismand his argument in print withJohn Henry Newman,accusing him of untruthfulness and deceit, prompted the latter to write hisApologia Pro Vita Sua.[16]Kingsley also wrote poetry and political articles, as well as several volumes of sermons.

Kingsley coined the termpteridomania(meaning "a craze for ferns" ) in his 1855 bookGlaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore.[17]

Racial views

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Anglo-Saxonism

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Kingsley was a ferventAnglo-Saxonist,[18]and was seen as a major proponent of the ideology, particularly in the 1840s.[19]He proposed that the English people were "essentially a Teutonic race, blood-kin to the Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians".[20]Kingsley suggested there was a "strong Norse element in Teutonism and Anglo-Saxonism".

Mixing mythology and Christianity, he blended Protestantism as it was practised at the time with theOld Norse religion,saying that theChurch of Englandwas "wonderfully and mysteriously fitted for the souls of a free Norse-Saxon race". He believed the ancestors of Anglo-Saxons, Norse andGermanic peopleshad physically fought beside the godOdin,and that the British monarchy was genetically descended from the god.[21]

Dislike of the Irish

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Kingsley has been accused ofintensely antagonistic views of the Irish,[16]whom he described in derogatory terms.[22][23]

VisitingCounty Sligoin Ireland, he wrote a letter to his wife fromMarkree Castlein 1860: "I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country [Ireland]... [for] to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not see it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours."[24][25]

Legacy

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A statue of Charles Kingsley atBideford,Devon (UK)

Charles Kingsley's novelWestward Ho!led to the founding ofa villageby the same name (the only place name in England with an exclamation mark) and inspired the construction of theBideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway.A hotel in Westward Ho! was named after and opened by him. A hotel which was opened in 1897 inBloomsbury,London, and named after Kingsley was founded byteetotallers,who admired Kingsley for his political views and his ideas on social reform. It still exists asThe Kingsley by Thistle.[26]

Kingsley School,aprivate schoolinBideford,the town in whichWestward Ho!is set, took its name from him after it was founded in 2009 as a merger ofEdgehill CollegeandGrenville College.

In 1905, the composerCyril Roothamwrote a musical setting of Kingsley's poemAndromeda.This was performed at the Bristol Music Festival in 1908. Like Kingsley, Rootham had been educated at Bristol Grammar School.[27]

Published works

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  • Yeast,a novel (1848)
  • Saint's Tragedy(1848), a drama
  • Alton Locke,a novel (1849)
  • Twenty-five Village Sermons(1849)
  • Cheap Clothes and Nasty(1850)
  • Three Fishers(1851)
  • Phaeton, or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers(1852)
  • Sermons on National Subjects(1st series, 1852)
  • Hypatia,a novel (1853)
  • Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore(1855)
  • Sermons on National Subjects(2nd series, 1854)
  • Alexandria and her Schools(1854)
  • Westward Ho!,a novel (1855)
  • Sermons for the Times(1855)
  • The Heroes, Greek fairy tales(1856)
  • Two Years Ago,a novel (1857)
  • Andromeda and other Poems(1858)
  • The Good News of God,sermons (1859)
  • Miscellanies(1859)
  • Limits of Exact Science applied to History(Inaugural lectures, 1860)
  • Town and Country Sermons(1861)
  • Sermons on the Pentateuch(1863)
  • The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby(1863)
  • The Roman and the Teuton(1864)
  • David and other Sermons(1866)
  • Hereward the Wake: "Last of the English",a novel (London: Macmillan, 1866)
  • The Ancient Régime(Lectures at the Royal Institution, 1867)
  • Water of Life and other Sermons(1867)
  • The Hermits(1869)
  • Madam How and Lady Why(1869)
  • At Last: a Christmas in the West Indies(1871)
  • Town Geology(1872)
  • Discipline and other Sermons(1872)
  • Prose Idylls(1873)
  • Plays and Puritans(1873)
  • Health and Education(1874)
  • Westminster Sermons(1874)
  • Lectures delivered in America(1875)[6]
  • Charles Kingsley's American Notes: Letters From a Lecture Tour, 1874(1958)
  • Earl Haladan's Daughter(1858)

References

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Citations

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  1. ^William Griggs,A Guide to All Saints Church, Clovelly,first published 1980, Revised Version 2010, p. 7.
  2. ^Vance, Norman. "Kingsley, Charles (1819–1875)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15617.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  3. ^"Kingsley, Charles (KNGY838C)".A Cambridge Alumni Database.University of Cambridge.
  4. ^"Charles Kingsley".
  5. ^abcdKrueger, Christine L. (2014).Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries.Infobase Publishing.ISBN978-1-4381-0870-4.
  6. ^abcdefChisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Kingsley, Charles".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 817.
  7. ^"Information Sheet: Charles Kingsley".Cheshire West and Chester.Archived fromthe originalon 16 July 2011.Retrieved19 April2010.
  8. ^Presidents of the BMI, BMI, nd (c. 2005).
  9. ^Hale, Piers J. (2011)."Darwin's Other Bulldog: Charles Kingsley and the Popularisation of Evolution in Victorian England"(PDF).Science & Education.21(7): 977–1013.doi:10.1007/s11191-011-9414-8.ISSN0926-7220.S2CID144142263.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 4 March 2016.
  10. ^J. I. Y. Klaver inLingua Et,Vol. 18, No. 2, 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  11. ^Kingsley, Charles (1898).The story of Perseus and the Gorgon's head.Review of Reviews Office.
  12. ^"The Heroes, by Charles Kingsley".www.gutenberg.org.Retrieved5 August2023.
  13. ^Darwin 1887,p.287.
  14. ^Darwin 1860,p.481.
  15. ^Charles Kingsley's American Notes: Letters from a Lecture Tour, 1874,edited byRobert Bernard Martinin 1958, and published byPrinceton University Press)
  16. ^abDonoghue, Denis(17 October 2013)."The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby, by Charles Kingsley. The classic children's story is 150 years old".The Irish Times.Retrieved25 September2016.
  17. ^Boyd, Peter D. A. (1993)."Pteridomania – the Victorian passion for ferns".peterboyd.com.
  18. ^Frankel, Robert (2007).Observing America: The Commentary of British Visitors to the United States, 1890–1950 (Studies in American Thought and Culture).University of Wisconsin Press.p. 54.ISBN978-0299218805.By midcentury such other eminent figures as Thomas Arnold and Charles Kingsley were also exalting the Anglo-the Saxon race. An essential feature of Anglo-Saxonism was the recognition of the race's Teutonic origins.
  19. ^Miller, Brook (2011).America and the British Imaginary in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Literature.Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-0230103764.
  20. ^Longley, Edna (2001).Poetry and Posterity.Bloodaxe Books.ISBN978-1852244354.
  21. ^Horsman, Reginald (1976).Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism in Great Britain before 1850(Journal of the History of Ideas – Vol. 37, No. 3 ed.).University of Pennsylvania Press.p. 76.
  22. ^McCourt, John (2015).Writing the Frontier: Anthony Trollope between Britain and Ireland.Oxford University Press.p. 28.ISBN978-0198729600.
  23. ^McCourt, John (2015).Representing Race: Racisms, Ethnicity and the Media.SAGE Publishing.p. 3.ISBN978-0761969129.
  24. ^Davis, Wes (11 March 2007)."When English Eyes Are Smiling".The New York Times.Retrieved25 September2016.
  25. ^Michie, Elsie B. (1976)."The Simianization of the Irish".Outside the Pale: Cultural Exclusion, Gender Difference, and the Victorian Woman Writer (Reading Women Writing).Cornell University Press.pp.49.ISBN978-0801480850.
  26. ^"The Kingsley".thistle.com.Archived fromthe originalon 22 July 2011.Retrieved21 February2019.
  27. ^Composer's website. Retrieved 2 May 2020.

Sources

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Further reading

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  • Chitty, Susan.Charles Kingsley's Landscape(David & Charles, 1976)
  • Chitty, Susan.The Beast and the Monk: A Life of Charles Kingsley(Hodder & Stoughton, 1974)
  • Colloms, Brenda.Charles Kingsley: The Lion of Eversley(Constable, 1975)
  • Conlin, Jonathan & Klaver, Jan Marten Ivo.Charles Kingsley: Faith, Flesh, and Fantasy(Routledge, 2020)
  • Kingsley, Frances Eliza (ed.)Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of his Life(Henry S. King, 1877)
  • Martin, R. B.The Dust of Combat: A Life of Charles Kingsley(Faber & Faber, 1959)
  • Martineau, Violet.John Martineau. The Pupil of Kingsley(Edward Arnold, 1921)
  • Pope-Hennessy, Una.Canon Charles Kingsley. A Biography(Chatto & Windus, 1948)
  • Rapple, Brendan A.The Rev. Charles Kingsley. An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Criticism 1900-2006(Scarecrow Press, 2007)
  • Thorp, Margaret Farrand.Charles Kingsley 1819-1875(Princeton University Press, 1937)
  • Stephen, Leslie(1892)."Kingsley, Charles".Dictionary of National Biography.Vol. 31. pp. 175–181.
  • Anonymous (1873)."Canon Kingsley".Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.Illustrated byFrederick Waddy.London: Tinsley Brothers. pp. 90–92 – viaWikisource.
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