This is the first full-length, serious biography of Frederick Temple, an eminent, nineteenth-century figure and father of William Temple who was Archbishop of Canterbury during the Second World War. Born on a Greek island, of middle-class but impoverished parents, he was educated at Balliol College on a scholarship, became principal of a college which trained teachers for pauper children, then headmaster of Rugby, and Bishop successively of Exeter and London before
finally becoming Archbishop of Canterbury at the age of 76 in 1897. In the realm of education he could be considered the real designer of the Oxford and Cambridge Examination Board in the 1850s; was a
contributor to the first of the `scandalous' volumes of liberal theology, Essays and Reviews in 1860; was secretary of the Taunton Commission on grammar school education in 1868; and gave the Bampton lectures of 1884 on science and religion which made the theory of evolution respectable. As Bishop of London he attempted to mediate in the London dock strike of 1889; was responsible for the final form of the Archbishops' reply to the Pope's encyclical on Anglican orders; presided over
the `Archbishops' Headings' on certain ritual practices in the `Church Crisis' at the end of the century; was much involved in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations; and crowned Edward VII. He collapsed
in the House of Lords after speaking in the debate on the education bill of 1902 and died soon afterwards. To gather the material for this fluent and attractive biography, the author has made use of the Temple family papers, most of which have been hitherto unpublished, as well as the more than 100 volumes of the Archbishop's official papers at Lambeth Palace.
Industry Reviews
`Hinchcliff provides interesting commentaries on the prevailing issues in the Victorian Church.'
Richard J. Janet, The Catholic Hist. Review.
`there is much biographical information, which is detailed enough to be interesting but not to swamp the reader with minutiae ... the story is so well told that any uneven joins hardly grate ...Hinchliff's great success is to show ... different sides of Temple's character and to illuminate his life's work so compellingly.'
James Garrard, Third Millennium - Affirming Catholicism
`With the skills of the professional historian, he both supplemented and corrected the impressions given by the memoirs in the light of other sources of information, and especially of unpublished letters and papers, many of which were made available to him by Temple's family ... Hinchcliff has served us well with a biography that not only fully charts his activities ... but also assesses his achievements in a very careful and balanced manner.'
Paul Bradshaw, Heythrop Journal
`Peter Hinchliff's perceptive Life is both a tribute to Temple and a fine example of Hichliff's own significant contribution to the study of church history.'
Church Times
`The book displays the late Professor Hinchliff's greatest gifts.'
TLS
`Peter Hinchliff's life of Temple is the first full biography as well as perforce the best, even though it comes nearly a century late. It is likely to remain the best biography for some time, because it is sound and thorough enough to deter a revision... The most important biographical discovery is that Temple's personal faith, shaped by the dominant influence of his mother, was of the pre-Tractarian High Church variety, a style of Anglican devotion that
has only recently been rediscovered.'
Josef L. Altholz, Church History, Vol. 68, No.2
`This biography will stand as a fitting memorial to his scholarship.'
Contemporary Review
`This is a fine life, full of valuable detail and keen comment, and enlivened by deft quotation, not least of Temple's later ripostes, some of which Hinchcliff describes as reading like captions to cartoons in Punch.'
The Expository Times
`a detailed, psycologically nuanced account of Temple's rise ... Hincliff handles controversy with particular clarity and engaging suspense ... For those interested in the history of modernity, in the powers of change as they bear down upon religious insitutions and their leaders, this is a valuably illustrative work. As to judging the efforts of those who 'have gone before us,' it should also provoke some healthy humility among the hindsighted.'
Alan P.R. Gregory, Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas, Anglican Theological Review, Vol 81, no 3
