Mandell Creighton: Difference between revisions

Mandell Creighton as Bishop of London, by Sir Hubert von Herkomer

Mandell Creighton /ˈmændəl ˈkraɪtən/ (5 July 1843 – 14 January 1901) was an English historian and bishop in the Church of England.

Early childhood

Mandell Creighton was born on 5 July 1843 in the border country city of Carlisle, Cumbria to Sarah (née Mandell) and Robert Creighton. His father, a carpenter, had built a successful cabinet-making and decorating business on Castle Street, the main thoroughfare in Carlisle that connected the city's historic castle to its centre, dominated by Carlisle Cathedral. The family lived above the shop in a two-storey house. A year later another son, James, was born to the couple and in 1846, a daughter, Mary, who, however, died before the year was out. In 1849, another daughter, Mary Ellen (Polly) was born and the following year Sarah Creighton died unexpectedly. Robert, who never remarried, and never spoke of his wife again, raised the children with help from his unmarried sister ("Aunt Jane") who came to live with the family for many years.

Photograph of the Creighton family in Carlisle ca. 1870 when Mandell was 26. Left to right: James, Robert, Mary Ellen (Polly), and Mandell.

A self-made man, Robert Creighton constantly and somewhat oppressively exhorted his sons to work; however, he also imbued them with a sense of independence. This later allowed Mandell to make career choices that were unorthodox for his background. For his part, his brother James would join his father's carpentry business, enter local politics, be twice elected mayor of Carlisle, and later become a director of North British Railway. Polly, in contrast, considered her childhood to be "horridly unhappy." Not being able to complete her school education, she never acquired the sophistication that she so greatly valued. The family house was spacious but spartan—there was little decoration and almost no books. Since, Robert, moreover, was given to losing his temper easily, the children grew up in a dreary and somewhat fearful "cultural vacuum." Years later Mandell Creighton's wife was to speculate that the absence of "family feeling" in her husband's childhood was very likely a result of not having a mother.

Creighton's education began in a nearby dame school, run by a stern headmistress. Given to restlessness and mischief, he was once tied to a desk's leg to keep him from talking, a punishment that he would later impose on his own children. In 1852, he moved to the cathedral's school on Castle Street across from their home. There, under the influence of a charismatic headmaster, Revd William Bell, he began to read voraciously and to succeed academically. Other students came seeking his help in translating passages from their classical studies; they soon gave him the nickname "Homer" on account of his quickness at construing. In November 1857, he took the King's Scholarship examination for admission to the Durham Grammar School, located some two hundred miles away. Since his Carlisle teachers had not prepared him for translation of Latin verse, he left that portion of the exam blank and was certain he had failed. The examiners, however, assessed his overall performance to be good and decided to accept him. In February 1858, the 15-year-old Creighton left Carlisle for Durham.

Durham Grammar School

The four years he spent at Durham Grammar School were the "happiest years" of his boyhood. The school was located scenically on a hill across the River Wear from the eleventh century Norman Durham Cathedral. The students were required to attend service in the cathedral on Sundays and holy days, and the high church ceremony there made a lasting impression on young Mandell. It became a focus of his religious life and would later influence his choice of career. Durham's headmaster, Dr. Henry Holden, a classical scholar, and an educational reformer, soon began to take an interest in the new student. With Holden's encouragement, Creighton became a prize winner in classical subjects and in English and French. In his last year at Durham, he was promoted to head boy of the school, a position that appealed to his great desire to influence people, especially younger boys. Although he aimed to do this by setting an example with his high moral life, he didn't, in an era of universal corporal punishment, hesitate to use the rod. In a letter he wrote to a Durham school monitor after he had left the school, he advised, "Remember, never thrash a fellow a little, always hard: and it is always well that he be thrashed by more than one of the monitors ..."

Durham Cathedral from Durham Grammar School chapel.

Creighton was severely shortsighted, and in addition, suffered from double vision, which forced him to read with one eye closed. Since his visual handicap also limited his participation in vigorous sport, he enthusiastically took to walking. His tours of the countryside, often with companions, a pastime he was to indulge in for the rest of his life, covered over twenty miles a day, lasted several days, and gave him many opportunities to also exercise his abiding curiosity in the local botany and architecture. In the spring of 1862, Creighton applied unsuccessfully for a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford; he next applied to Merton College, Oxford, for a "classical postmastership" (as the scholarships there are called). This he was able to secure and in October 1862, he arrived in Oxford. He continued to take great interest in the Durham Grammar School after leaving it. In a "perpetuated family myth," he is said, in 1866, to have walked from Oxford to Durham in three days to hear "school speeches."

Oxford

Founded in 1264, Merton College, the alma mater of Roger Bacon and William of Occam, had become, by 1860, a place for the wealthy "hunting set." It was at this time still a small college: the entire undergraduate body consisted of some forty students. Creighton's postmastership of £70 a year was able to cover his tuition, but not much more. For his other expenses, he had to rely on support from his father whose "manner made it difficult to ask for anything." For most of his time at Merton, he lived economically in attic rooms at the top of a staircase off the college quadrangles, Mob Quad; in his last year he moved off-campus to share some rooms on High Street with George Saintsbury, the future author and wine critic. Although Creighton's shortsightedness prevented his participation in cricket and soccer, he joined the college rowing team. His walking activity continued apace. Walking around Oxford for a few hours in the late afternoon was popular among many students; Creighton, however, organized longer walks, some lasting all day.

His reading also continued to flourish, and not just for his studies. Among writers and poets, he was particularly fond of, Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson and Swinburne. Of the more recent novels, he enjoyed Jane Eyre and The Mill on the Floss. He read so voraciously that he sometimes stayed at Oxford during his vacations in order to read without disturbance. He would take his books with him while punting on the River Cherwell. He attended reading parties organized by Oxford tutors. He was also becoming politically aware; if pressed, he professed a liberalism based on the "sovereignty of the individual." He joined the Oxford Union, and although he seldom gave public speeches there, he was elected Union president. He especially honed his skills in informal conversations, conducted anywhere and everywhere, about topics large and small, what Gladstone later was to dub the "Oxford agony."

Mandell Creighton in 1862 during his first year at Merton College, Oxford.

He came seriously to believe that it was the business of all individuals to influence others to the full extent of their abilities. He sought out others to influence and instruct. Consequently, among his Merton friends, he received the nickname "The Professor," or "P." In his second year, he and three other students became inseparable both during term time and during vacations, forming a group called "The Quadrilateral." Creighton had a large number of close male friends, but didn't form any close friendships with women. In his final term, he wrote to a friend, that "ladies in general are very unsatisfactory mental food: they seem to have no particular thoughts or ideas ..."

Academically, his goal became the pursuit of an honours degree in literae humaniores, a classical studies curriculum that attracted the best students at Oxford. In the final examinations, in the spring of his fourth year, he received a first-class. He then immediately began studying in the School of Law and Modern History during the summer of 1866. Taking the examinations in that School in the Autumn term of 1866, he received a second class, his examiners being of the view that he had not mastered the details enough. However, since the literae humaniores degree was considered the more established one, he was asked by the classics professor, Benjamin Jowett, to apply for a college teaching fellowship. As it turned out, he didn't have to; he had decided to accept holy orders, and his own college, Merton, offered him a clerical fellowship with tutorial duties on 22 December 1866.

Teaching and marriage

During the second half of the 19th century, many academic reforms were instituted at Oxford university. Chief among these were the new responsibilities given to college tutors. These instructors, whose primary job was to give personalized instruction to undergraduates in order to prepare them for the university's examinations, were now also given lecturing duties within their respective colleges. Since the tutors were chosen from distinguished recent graduates, the new teaching staff was more youthful. Religious beliefs were also undergoing an upheaval. Many Victorian intellectuals, who had been raised in Christian households, had, in their adult life, begun to experience religious doubt and were moving in secular directions. Creighton, in contrast, was slowly solidifying his religious beliefs. While his high church views had moderated somewhat, he never had any crisis of confidence. He had no interest in the new natural sciences, and was unmoved to read Darwin, regarding his writings as too much speculation. His friend Henry Scott Holland said that at "the close of the [1860s], it seemed to us at Oxford almost incredible that a young don of any intellectual reputation for modernity should be on the Christian side."

Merton College at that time was suffering from student unrest stemming from a "leadership vacuum" in the teaching faculty. Many fellows, whether resident or non-resident, had become distant presences. Since Creighton was popular with students, he was looked upon as someone who would exercise leadership. He succeeded to a degree. He did this by appealing to the students' "reason" and "common sense" and by simultaneously immersing himself among them. He was given more responsibilities; these, in their wake, brought promotions and salary increases. In four years of teaching, his salary had more than doubled. He joined forces with a Merton tutor to open collegiate lectures to students of other colleges. Soon, the Association of Tutors was born, as well as an Oxford-wide series of lectures that any student could attend. The lectures proved ominous in his choice of future research. He wrote later,

We worked out among us a scheme of lectures covering the whole field (of history), and were the pioneers of the 'Intercollegiate Lectures' which now prevail at both universities. The needs of this scheme threw upon me the ecclesiastical, and especially papal history, which no one else took.

Creighton also continued his one-on-one instruction in his rooms. Among his two famous pupils were future statesman Lord Randolph Churchill and Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the hemophelic son of Queen Victoria.

Louise von Glehn at the time of her engagement to Mandell Creighton, 1871.

Creighton spent many vacations in Europe. He fell in love with Italy, its scenery, its culture, and its people. This led naturally to a fascination with Renaissance Italy, which became his scholarly interest. He had also become an admirer of Walter Pater and the aestheticism movement. His rooms in Oxford were tastefully decorated with William Morris wallpaper and blue china. The furnishings brought admiration from friends as well as requests to view them from acquaintances. Creighton was now leading a life that was a far cry from his frugal student one. Upon his return from a vacation in Europe, in early 1871, he attended a lecture by art critic John Ruskin at the Sheldonian Theatre. After the lecture, he noticed his friend and future author Humphry Ward talking to an unfamiliar young woman who was wearing a yellow scarf. Yellow was his favourite colour; the scarf aroused his interest enough for him to ask Ward about the woman, whose name was Louise von Glehn. Soon Ward invited Creighton and von Glehn to a Valentines Day lunch hosted in his rooms in Brasenose College. Ward himself had some romantic interest in von Glehn though he had also been favouring Mary Arnold, the granddaughter of educator Thomas Arnold of Rugby School and niece of critic Matthew Arnold. In a few weeks, von Glenn found herself won over by Creighton's charm, and before she left Oxford at the end of the month, the two were engaged. They had agreed to be married the following winter; however, as Christmas approached, it was still not clear if Merton College would wave its requirement of celibacy for its teaching fellows. On Christmas eve, the college finally relented and elected four married fellows, one of whom was Creighton. von Glehn and Creighton were married on 8 January 1872 in her home town of Sydenham, Kent. They spent a week honeymooning in Paris before Creighton had to return to Oxford for the new teaching term.

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Embleton

The Embleton vicarage with its pele tower.

In 1875, Creighton was appointed vicar of the parish of Embleton, a village on the North Sea coast in Northumberland approximately mid-way between Edinburgh and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The vicarage, owned by Merton College and consisting of a fortified pele tower built in the 14th century along with adjoining later additions, was a large establishment with many rooms for Creighton's growing family, their guests, and servants. The parish of a handful of villages consisted of approximately 1700 inhabitants, among whom were farmers, whinstone quarrymen, herring and haddock fishermen, women workers in fish curing yards, and railwaymen; there were also two noblemen at Fallodon Hall and Howick Hall nearby. With the help of a curate paid from his own funds, Creighton established a routine that enabled him to attend both to pastoral duty and to history writing. Although they missed Oxford society and its stimulation, the Creightons gradually adapted to their new surroundings. Mandell, and whenever possible, Louise, spent the afternoons visiting the homes of their parishioners, listening to them, giving advice, offering prayers and conducting services for the house bound, and, on occasion, even handing out home-made medical remedies. They found their parishioners to be reserved, proud, and independent, but lacking in morals. According to author James Covert, "Drunkenness barely surpassed graver vices of fornication and adultery." The Creightons, who were no teetotalers themselves, founded the local chapter of the Church of England temperance society and, in the process, displeased some locals. Louise organized meetings of the Mothers' Union as well as the Girls' Friendly Society, which aimed to empower girls—it encouraged them, for example, to stay in school until the age of fourteen.

"(A good teacher) brings knowledge and his pupil into a vital relationship; and the object of teaching is to establish that relationship on an intelligible basis. This can only be done ... by appealing to two qualities which are at the bottom of all knowledge, curiosity and observation. They are born with us, every child naturally develops them, and it is the duty of the teacher to direct them to proper ends."

— From Mandell Creighton's Thoughts on Education: Speeches and Sermons (1902)

Creighton's own family was growing: four more children were born during the Embleton years, and all were home schooled, mostly by Louise. Creighton took great interest in the parish schools, served as examiner for other schools in the region, and began to crystallize his ideas on the education of children. He was also elected to local government bodies such as the Board of Guardians, which enacted poor laws in the region, as well as the local sanitary authority. In 1879, he accepted his first leadership position in the Church of England: he was appointed rural dean of the nearby town of Alnwick, responsible for supervision of the clergy in neighbouring parishes.

During their ten years in Embleton, the Creightons—he in his 30s and she, for most of this time, in her 20s—between the two of them, wrote 15 books. They both wrote history books for young people; Louise wrote an unsuccessful novel, and Mandell wrote the first two volumes of his magnum opus, The History of the Papacy in the Period of Reformation. In the Papacy volumes, Creighton advocated the view that the turbulence of the reformation was made inevitable by the Popes by their obstruction of the milder parliamentary reforms. The books were well received and commended for their even-handed approach. Lord Acton, who reviewed the books in the Academy and who was aware that the books were written over a few years in a northern vicarage far away from the centres of scholarship, wrote:

The history of increasing depravity and declining faith, of reforms earnestly demanded, feebly attempted, and deferred too long, is told by Mr. Creighton with a fullness of accuracy unusual in works which are the occupation of a lifetime.

Creighton also wrote dozens of book-reviews and scholarly articles. Among them were his first forays into the role of the Church of England in the life of the nation. Throughout the 19th century, the Church of England had suffered erosion of membership. In the mid-century, many scholars such as educator Thomas Arnold had asserted the identity of the church and the nation; however, as the century wound down, Creighton was among a small minority who were still asserting the same.

In 1884, Creighton was asked to apply for the newly created professorship of ecclesiastical history, the Dixie chair, at Cambridge University. His application proved successful, and on 9 November, 1884, he preached his last sermon at Embleton church. Later, he was to write, "At Embleton I spent ten years, and I have no hesitation in saying that they were the ten happiest years of my life." His parishioners, for their part, found it difficult to express their feelings openly; said one woman, "Well, if you ain't done no good, you've done no harm."

Cambridge and Worcester

Mandell Creighton with three of his daughters (from left to right), Lucia, Beatrice, and Mary, in 1888. The Creightons' fourth daughter and seventh child, Gemma, born the previous year, is not shown.

Upon their arrival in Cambridge in late November 1884, the Creightons were swamped with invitations to various social engagements. Mandell enjoyed making the rounds of the senior common rooms in various Cambridge colleges and perplexing people with his complex personality. When transacting academic business during the day he displayed a shrewd, canny intelligence, however, at social gatherings in the evenings he was consistently outrageous and flippant, to the delight of his students. Interaction with academic society after an interregnum of ten years led to new friendships, especially for Louise. One such new friend, who became a lifelong one, was Beatrice Webb. Although Mandell had already corresponded with fellow historian Lord Acton, he soon met him in person, as he did other Cambridge notables, such as Robertson Smith, the Hebrew and Arabic scholar, and Alfred Marshall, the economist. Old friends and relatives visited as well, even though the Creightons' Cambridge house was nowhere near as spacious as the Embleton vicarage.

At the time of Creighton's arrival in Cambridge a dispute about the scope of the bachelor's honours examination, or the tripos, in History and Theology had come to a head. The history tripos had been created by historian John Seeley who held that history was really political history, an essential part of the training of public servants, and stated tersely, "history is the school of statesmanship." In opposition, were reformers such as historian George Walter Prothero, as well as Henry Melvill Gwatkin, Creighton's successor to the Dixie chair, who advocated a broader and more scientific approach to history. In spring 1885, the board of historical studies in Cambridge met to consider reforms. Although Creighton did not take active part in the discussions, he sided with the reformers, and a compromise was reached which stressed the need for students to read primary sources in their historical subject of interest.

"I turn to the past to learn its story without any preconceived opinion what that story may be. I do not assume that one period or one line of study is more instructive than another, but I am ready to recognise the real identity of man's aspiration at all times. Some episodes in history are regarded as profoundly modern; others are dismissed contemptuously as concerned with trifles. In some ages there are great heroes, in others the actors are sunk in indolence and sloth. For my own part I do not recognise this great distinction."

— From, "The teaching of ecclesiastical history," Inaugural lecture, Dixie Chair of Ecclesiastical History, University of Cambridge, 23 January 1885.

Creighton lectured twice a week in the History Department at Cambridge, preparing extensively, but lecturing extemporaneously. A colleague said of him, "He did not care for eloquence, indeed he despised it; what he aimed at was instruction, and for this he always looked more to principles than facts." He also lectured more informally to undergraduates at Emmanuel College once a week. He supported Cambridge's two new women's colleges, Newnham and Girton, and taught informal weekly classes at Newnham. Two students from those classes, Mary Bateson and Alice Gardner, later became professional historians, both mentored by Creighton during their early careers.

In spring 1885, Creighton accepted an offer, from prime minister Gladstone, of residentiary canon at Worcester Cathedral. Since the residency requirement of three months could be met during Cambridge vacations, the Creighton family settled into an annual routine of six moves between Cambridge and Worcester, a distance of over 100 miles. The Worcester experience led Creighton to think about how the relationship of competition between a cathedral and its diocesan parish churches could be turned into one of cooperation, a subject on which he would write scholarly articles. By providing an introduction to the grim realities of city life, Worcester, moreover, awakened Creighton's social consciousness. He joined the Worcester Diocesan Penitentiary Association and was moved by the plight of prison inmates. In a sermon at the Sanitary Congress of Worcester in 1889, he spoke eloquently about the effect of harsh physical life on moral life,

... the unwholesome air of the factory, the crowded workshop, the ill-ventilated room, all those things rob the body of its vigour, how they must also act upon the soul! ... uncleanliness, hatred, variance, drunkenness, revelling. Do not these things, think you, come largely from, and are they not greatly affected by, the physical conditions under which life is lived?

At the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Harvard University in November 1886, Creighton, accompanied by Louise, represented Emmanuel College—founder John Harvard's alma mater. During the extended visit, they met prominent American men of letters, including historian the American west, Francis Parkman; historian of art, Charles Eliot Norton; president of Harvard, Charles W. Eliot; first president of Johns Hopkins University, Daniel C. Gilman; supreme court justice, Oliver Wendel Holmes; and poet and critic James Russel Lowell. On November 8, 1886, Creighton received an honorary degree from Harvard.

In February 1887, volumes 3 and 4 of Creighton's History of the Papacy were published by Longmans. These volumes narrowed the focus to specific Popes, chiefly, Sixtus IV, Alexander VI, and Julius II. In his trademark style of maintaining historiographical balance and considering individuals to be mired in their historical eras, Creighton did not single out anyone for especial condemnation, even Alexander VI, whose "exceptional infamy" Creighton felt was "largely due to the fact that he did not add hypocrisy to his other vices." Earlier in 1885, Creighton had agreed to become the first editor of a new journal, the English Historical Review. Now he requested Lord Acton to review his two volumes for the journal. Acton wrote a review, which was not only hostile, but, in Creighton's view, also obscure. In the following weeks, there were contentious exchanges between the two men, polarizing eventually into their two views of history, Acton's normative approach versus Creighton's more relativist one. It was in one of these exchanges that Acton penned three memorable sentences, one of which was to become an oft-quoted modern dictum, "Historical responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority." Acton's attack did, however, lead Creighton to rethink his own position somewhat. In an 1895 paper, he would write that the papacy, "which had been established for the promotion of morality" had in fact "provided the means for the utmost immorality."

Peterborough

Mandell Creighton in the garden of the palace in Peterborough, 1893

London

Cartoon of Mandell Creighton, the newly appointed Bishop of London, in Vanity Fair, April 1897.

On the death of Edward White Benson in 1896 Creighton was considered as his replacement as Archbishop of Canterbury. Queen Victoria, although an admirer of Creighton, felt it would be inappropriate to elevate the relatively young Creighton – 53 in 1896 – over more experienced candidates, and the elderly Bishop of London, Frederick Temple, was elevated to Canterbury. Despite opposition from John Kensit and the Protestant Truth Society, who saw Creighton's Anglo-Catholicism as an attempt to reverse the English Reformation, Creighton was nominated to succeed replace Temple at London at the end of 1897, and took up the post on 15 January 1897, in the expectation that he would one day replace the elderly Temple at Canterbury.

The post of Bishop of London was one of the busiest positions in the church. As well as covering the historic county of Middlesex, encompassing most of London and its suburbs north of the Thames, which by this time was becoming very densely populated, the Bishop was also the head of all Anglican clergy in Continental Europe and the British Empire, and an ex officio Trustee of many major London institutions, including the British Museum and National Portrait Gallery. Creighton devoted himself to the job, prompting Lord Salisbury to call him "the hardest working man in the country". Louise Creighton, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly well known as an activist for women's rights, leading a campaign on employment conditions for women, co-writing with Beatrice Webb and Helen Bosanquet an influential article in The Nineteenth Century on the conditions of – predominantly female – laundry workers, and leading a campaign against the marginalisation of women in the Church.

Mandell Creighton was physically drained by the work involved in the post of Bishop of London. In 1900 he was taken ill while on a visit to Italy, and returned to London to face two operations on what is believed to have been a bleeding duodenal ulcer, exacerbated by his heavy smoking. The operations were unsuccessful, and he died, aged 57, on 14 January 1901. Louise Creighton later described her feelings at the time as "A strange sense of liberty. I had lost everything, there was nothing more to fear and be anxious about, all that remained was to try and be of some use to others in the life that I still had to live."

Notes and references

Secondary sources

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Primary sources

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External links

• Prof. Robert Evans (Oxford) Lecture on the Creighton Century (1907–2007), King's College London.
• "Archival material relating to Mandell Creighton". UK National Archives.
• "Archival material relating to Louise Creighton (collected family letters)". UK National Archives.