John Keble^[a] (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) was an EnglishAnglican priest and poet who was one of the leaders of theOxford Movement.Keble College, Oxford, is named after him.^[1]

The Reverend John Keble
Born	25 April 1792 Fairford, England
Died	29 March 1866(1866-03-29) (aged 73) Bournemouth, England
Notable work	The Christian Year (1827) "National Apostasy" (1833)
Movement	Oxford Movement
Spouse	Charlotte Clarke ​ (m. 1835)​
Ecclesiastical career
Religion	Christianity (Anglican)
Church	Church of England
Ordained	1815 (deacon) 1816 (priest)
Academic background
Alma mater	Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Academic work
Discipline	Literature
Sub-discipline	Poetry
Institutions	Oriel College, Oxford

Keble was born on 25 April 1792 inFairford, Gloucestershire, where his father, also named John Keble, wasvicar ofColn St. Aldwyns. He and his brotherThomas were educated at home by their father until each went to Oxford. In 1806, Keble won a scholarship toCorpus Christi College, Oxford. He excelled in his studies and in 1810 achieved double first-class honours in both Latin and mathematics. In 1811, he won the university prizes for both the English and Latin essays and became a fellow ofOriel College. He was for some years a tutor and examiner at theUniversity of Oxford.^[2]

While still at Oxford, he wasordained in 1816,^[3] becoming a curate to his father and then curate ofSt Michael and St Martin's Church, Eastleach Martin, in Gloucestershire while still residing at Oxford. On the death of his mother in 1823, he left Oxford and returned to live with his father and two surviving sisters at Fairford.

Between 1824 and 1835, he was three times offered a position and each time declined on the grounds that he ought not separate himself from his father and only surviving sister. In 1828, he was nominated asprovost of Oriel College but not elected.^[2][4]

Meantime, he had been writingThe Christian Year, a book of poems for the Sundays and feast days of the church year. It appeared in 1827 and was very effective in spreading Keble's devotional and theological views. It was intended as an aid to meditation and devotion following the services of the Prayer Book.^[5] Though at first anonymous, its authorship soon became known, with Keble in 1831 appointed to theChair of Poetry at Oxford, which he held until 1841. Victorian scholar Michael Wheeler callsThe Christian Year simply "the most popular volume of verse in the nineteenth century".^[6] In his essay onTractarian Aesthetics and the Romantic Tradition, Gregory Goodwin claims thatThe Christian Year is "Keble's greatest contribution to the Oxford Movement and to English literature." As evidence, Goodwin citesE. B. Pusey's report that 95 editions of this devotional text were printed during Keble's lifetime, and "at the end of the year following his death, the number had arisen to a hundred-and-nine".

By the time that the copyright expired in 1873, over 375,000 copies had been sold in Britain and 158 editions had been published. Despite its widespread appeal among the Victorian readers and the familiarity of certain well-known hymns, the popularity of Keble'sThe Christian Year faded in the 20th century.

At Oxford, Keble metJohn Taylor Coleridge who introduced him to the writings not only of his uncle,Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but also of Wordsworth. He dedicated hisPraelectiones to and greatly admired Wordsworth, who once offered to go overThe Christian Year with a view to correcting the English.^[7] To the same college friend, he was indebted for an introduction toRobert Southey, whom he found to be "a noble and delightful character," and the writings of the three, especially Wordsworth, had much to do with the formation of Keble's own mind as a poet.^[2]

Delivered on 14 July 1833, his famous Assize Sermon on "National Apostasy" gave the first impulse to theOxford Movement, also known as the Tractarian movement. It marked the opening of a term of the civil and criminal courts and is officially addressed to the judges and officers of the court, exhorting them to deal justly.^[3] Keble contributed seven pieces forTracts for the Times, a series of short papers dealing with faith and practice. Along with his colleagues, includingJohn Henry Newman andEdward Pusey, he became a leading light in the movement but did not follow Newman into theRoman Catholic Church.

In 1835, his father died, and Keble and his sister retired from Fairford to Coln. In the same year he married Charlotte Clarke,^[8] and the vicarage ofHursley inHampshire, becoming vacant, was offered to him; he accepted.^[3] In 1836, he settled in Hursley and remained for the rest of his life as a parish priest at All Saints' Church. In 1841 his neighbourCharlotte Mary Yonge, a resident at Otterbourne House in the adjacent village ofOtterbourne, where Keble was responsible for building a new church, compiledThe Child's Christian Year: Hymns for every Sunday and Holy-Day to which Keble contributed four poems, includingBethlehem, above all cities blest.^[2]

In 1857, he wrote one of his more important works, his treatise on Eucharistical Adoration, written in support ofGeorge Denison, who had been attacked for his views on the Eucharist.^[5]

In 1836, he published his edition ofHooker's Works. In 1838, he began to edit, in conjunction withEdward Bouverie Pusey andJohn Henry Newman, theLibrary of the Fathers. A volume ofAcademical and Occasional Sermons appeared in 1847.^[2] Other works were aLife ofWilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man. After his death,Letters of Spiritual Counsel and 12 volumes of Parish Sermons were published.

Extracts from a number of his verses found their way into popular collections of Hymns for Public Worship, such as "The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden",^[9] "Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear",^[10]Blest are the pure in heart andNew every morning is the love.

Lyra Innocentium was being composed while Keble was stricken by what he always seems to have regarded as the great sorrow of his life, the decision of Newman to leave the Church of England for Catholicism.^[2]

Keble died inBournemouth on 29 March 1866 at the Hermitage Hotel, after visiting the area to try and recover from a long-term illness as he believed the sea air had therapeutic qualities. He is buried in All Saints' churchyard, Hursley.^[11]

Keble has been described thus:

He was absolutely without ambition, with no care for the possession of power or influence, hating show and excitement, and distrustful of his own abilities.... Though shy and awkward with strangers, he was happy and at ease among his friends, and their love and sympathy drew out all his droll playfulness of wit and manner.... In personal appearance he was about middle height, with rather square and sloping shoulders, which made him look short until he pulled himself up, as he often did with 'sprightly dignity.' His head, says Mozley, 'was one of the most beautifully formed heads in the world,' the face rather plain-featured, with a large unshapely mouth, but the whole redeemed by a bright smile which played naturally over the lips; and under a broad and smooth forehead he had 'clear, brilliant, penetrating eyes which lighted up quickly with merriment kindled into fire in a moment of indignation.... a quiet country clergyman, with a very moderate income, who sedulously avoided public distinctions, and held tenaciously to an unpopular School all his life.^[5]

John Keble isremembered in theChurch of England with aLesser Festival on14 July (the anniversary of his Assize Sermon),^[12] and a commemoration observed on 29 March (the anniversary of his death) elsewhere in theAnglican Communion.^[13]Keble College, Oxford, was founded in his memory, andJohn Keble Church, Mill Hill, and the ancientclapper bridge over theRiver Leach near the church in which he was curate in the village ofEastleach Martin were named after him.

The view fromBulverton Hill, Sidmouth, where Keble was a frequent visitor, is thought to have inspired some of his best loved work. The hill commands a panoramic view of the Lower Otter Valley and Dartmoor in the distance. Folklore suggests that his favourite spot was where a wooden bench known as Keble's Seat has been in place for many years.

The 'Te Deum' window in the south-east transept ofSt Peter's Church, Bournemouth, was commissioned as a memorial to Keble, who had preferred to sit in the transept when worshipping at St Peter's daily in the last months of his life. Later, in 1906, the transept was re-configured as the Keble Chapel.^[14]

Lives of Keble include one byJohn Taylor Coleridge (1869), who said, "The Christian Year is so wonderfully scriptural. Keble's mind was, by long, patient and affectionate study of Scripture, so imbued with it that its language, its train of thought, its mode of reasoning, seems to flow out into his poetry, almost, one should think, unconsciously to himself."^[2] Another is byWalter Lock (1895). In 1963Georgina Battiscombe wrote a biography titledJohn Keble: A Study in Limitations.

• Blair, Kirstie, ed. (2004)John Keble in Context. London: AnthemISBN 1-84331146-1 (Papers from a conference held at Keble College, Oxford, May 2003.)
• Cross, F. L., ed. (1957),The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford UP, p. 761.
• Hooker, Richard (1841)The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. Richard Hooker: with an account of his life and death by Isaac Walton; Arranged by the Rev. John Keble, M.A. late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, Professor of Poetry. 3 vols. Oxford: University Press
• Keble, John (1912)Keble's Lectures on Poetry, 1832–1841; translated by Edward Kershaw Francis. (In: Aesthetics and Religion in Nineteenth-century Britain.ISBN 1-85506964-4 (6 vols.)) Bristol: Thoemmes, 2003 (reprint of the 1912 edition)
• Lott, Bernard Maurice (1960)The Poetry of John Keble, with special reference to the Christian Year and his contribution to the Lyra Apostolica. Thesis (PhD)—University of London, 1960
• Rowlands, John Henry Lewis (1989).Church, State, and Society, 1827–1845: the Attitudes of John Keble, Richard Hurrell Froude, and John Henry Newman. Worthing, Eng.: P. Smith [of] Churchman Publishing; Folkestone, Eng.: distr. …by Bailey Book Distribution.ISBN 1-85093-132-1
• Woods, Mark Robert (1987)John Keble's Theory of Poetry and its Sources. Thesis (M.Litt.) – University of Bristol, 1987.

• Works by John Keble atProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Keble at theInternet Archive
• Works by John Keble atLibriVox (public domain audiobooks) 
• John Keble, The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania
• John Keble papers, 1841-1866 at Pitts Theology Library,Candler School of Theology
• Keble, John,Christian Year, ccel.org
• John Keble Quotes at QuoteTails
• Keble, John,Works online,Project Canterbury.
• John Keble 1792–1866, The Cyber Hymnal, archived fromthe original on 31 May 2012, retrieved31 May 2009.
• Yonge, Charlotte M, ed. (1898),John Keble's Parishes: a History of Hursley and Otterbourne.
• KEBLES SEATJohn Keble's coastal vantage point is celebrated by Sidmouth estate owners | Exeter Express and Echo