Denison

Denison, JOHN EVELYN, for fourteen years Speaker of the House of Commons, and afterwards Viscount Ossington, was born 27th January 1800, at Ossington, Nottinghamshire. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he entered parliament in 1823, and was a Lord of the Admiralty 1827-28. In 1872 he retired from the Speaker's chair, and shortly after was created Viscount Ossington. He was a D.C.L. of Oxford; and it was on his suggestion that the Speaker's Commentary to the Bible was undertaken. He died 7th March 1873.—His brother, GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON, Archdeacon of Tannton, was born in 1805, and educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, in 1828 being elected a Fellow of Oriel. In 1843 he became Vicar of East Brent, Somerset; in 1851 Archdeacon of Tannton. In 1854 proceedings were taken against him for heresy, contained in three sermons on the Real Presence, and he was condemned to be deprived of all ecclesiastical preferments; but on appeal to the Court of Arches and the Privy-council, this judgment was quashed. He was a leader of the High Church party, opposed secular education, and advocated confession. He was chairman of the Committee of Convocation which condemned Essays and Reviews and Bishop Colenso's works, and died 21st March 1896. See his delightful Notes of my Life (2 vols. 1878-93).—Other brothers were Edward, Bishop of Salisbury (1801-54), and Sir William Thomas, Governor of New South Wales and Madras (1804-71).