Charles Kingsley | |
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| Born | (1819-06-12)12 June 1819 Holne, Devon, England |
| Died | 23 January 1875(1875-01-23) (aged 55) Eversley, Hampshire, England |
| Occupation | Clergyman, historian, novelist |
| Nationality | English |
| Alma mater | |
| Period | 19th century |
| Genre | Social Christianity |
| Literary movement | Christian socialism |
| Spouse | Frances Eliza Grenfell |
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Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was abroad churchpriest of theChurch of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated withChristian socialism,Anti-Catholicism, theworking men's college, and forminglabour cooperatives, which failed, but encouraged later working reforms.
Kingsley was born inHolne,Devon, the elder son of the Reverend Charles Kingsley and his wife, Mary Lucas Kingsley. His brother,Henry Kingsley (1830–1876), and sister,Charlotte 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 School andHelston Grammar School[2] before studying atKing's College London and 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 becameRector ofEversley inHampshire. In 1859, he was appointed chaplain toQueen Victoria.[5][6] In 1860, he becameRegius Professor of Modern History at 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 acanon ofChester Cathedral. While there, he founded theChester Society 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 Rebellion against 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 Huxley in 1860, and sent letters in 1863 discussing Huxley's early ideas onagnosticism.
Charles Kingsley died of pneumonia on 23 January 1875 at Eversley, Hampshire, aged 55. He was buried there in St. Mary's Churchyard.[10]
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 Heroes the story ofPerseus, the Gorgon Slayer was taken and in 1898 republished asThe Story of Perseus and the Gorgon's Head.[11][12]
He was sympathetic to the idea ofevolution and 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.
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 Award in 1963.
Kingsley's chief asset as a novelist lay in his descriptive faculties: the descriptions of South American scenery inWestward Ho!, of theEgyptian desert inHypatia, and of theNorth Devon scenery 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-babies andMadam 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 Catholicism and 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]
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 England was "wonderfully and mysteriously fitted for the souls of a free Norse-Saxon race". He believed the ancestors of Anglo-Saxons, Norse andGermanic peoples had physically fought beside the godOdin, and that the British monarchy was genetically descended from the god.[21]
Kingsley has been accused ofintensely antagonistic views of the Irish,[16] whom he described in derogatory terms.[22][23]
VisitingCounty Sligo in Ireland, he wrote a letter to his wife fromMarkree Castle in 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]
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Charles Kingsley's novelWestward Ho! led to the founding ofa village by 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 school inBideford, the town in whichWestward Ho! is set, took its name from him after it was founded in 2009 as a merger ofEdgehill College andGrenville College.
In 1905, the composerCyril Rootham wrote 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]
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Kingsley, Charles".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 817.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.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) 2nd edition. Retrieved on 20 July 2007{{citation}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin) Retrieved on 20 July 2007
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