Liddon, HENRY PARRY, D.D.

Liddon, HENRY PARRY, D.D., was born at North Stoneham, Hampshire, 20th August 1829, the son of a naval captain, and at the age of seventeen went up from King's College School, London, to Christ Church, Oxford, where in 1850 he graduated B.A. with a second-class in classics, and in 1851 obtained the coveted Johnson theological scholarship. Ordained in 1852 as senior student or fellow of Christ Church, from 1854 to 1859 he was vice-principal of Cuddesdon Theological College. He was appointed prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral in 1864, and was select preacher at Oxford in 1863-65, 1870-72, 1877-79, and 1884. Dr Liddon was a member of the Hebdomadal Council at Oxford from 1866 to 1875. In the former year he delivered his famous Bampton Lectures on the Divinity of Our Lord (1867; 13th ed. 1889). In 1870 Dr Liddon was created Canon Residentiary of St Paul's Cathedral, and in the same year was appointed Ireland professor of the Exegesis of the Holy Scripture in Oxford University, when he was created D.D. and honorary D.C.L. He resigned the Ireland professorship in October 1882 in consequence of ill-health, and owing to the same cause it is understood that he more than once afterwards declined a bishopric. In 1869 he republished from the Guardian a sketch of 'Walter Kerr Hamilton, Bishop of Salisbury.' He edited in 1874 Bishop Andrewes' Manual for the Sick; Dr Pusey's Prayers for a School Boy in 1883; issued a selection of Private Prayers in 1884; and in conjunction with Dr William Bright wrote the English Church Defence Tracts. Canon Liddon's sermons have exercised a profound influence upon the thought of the time, and many of them have been published, including those upon his friends Pusey and Bishop Wilberforce, the sermons preached before the university of Oxford, Lent lectures, and discourses on church troubles. Dr Liddon strongly opposed the Church Discipline Act of 1874, and as warmly supported (by letters in the Times) Mr Gladstone's crusade against the Bulgarian atrocities in 1876. He took a great interest in the Conference for the Reunion of the Churches held at Bonn in 1875, and translated Professor Reusch's account of the conference, writing also a preface for the same work. Canon Liddon was the most able and eloquent exponent of Liberal High Church principles. He had long been engaged on the Life of Dr Pusey, when he died suddenly at Weston-super-Mare, 9th September 1890.