25 Facts About Frederick Temple

Frederick Temple was an English academic, teacher and churchman, who served as Bishop of Exeter, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury.

On his retirement, Major Temple settled in Devon and contemplated a farming life for his son Frederick, giving him a practical training to that end.

Frederick Temple's grandfather was William Johnson Frederick Temple, Rector of Mamhead in Devon, who is mentioned several times in James Boswell's Life of Johnson.

Frederick Temple was sent to Blundell's School, Tiverton, and soon showed signs of being suited to a different career.

Frederick Temple retained a warm affection for the school, where he did well both academically and at physical activities, especially walking.

The family was not wealthy, and Frederick Temple knew he would have to earn his own living.

Frederick Temple took the first step by winning a Blundell scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, before he was seventeen.

The experiment was not successful, and Frederick Temple himself advised its abandonment in 1855.

Frederick Temple then accepted a school-inspectorship, which he held until he went to teach at Rugby School in 1858.

Frederick Temple strengthened the school's academic reputation in the classics, but instituted scholarships in natural science, built a laboratory, and recognised the importance of these subjects.

Frederick Temple reformed the sporting activities, in spite of all the traditions of the playing fields.

Frederick Temple's essay had dealt with the intellectual and spiritual growth of the race, and had pointed out the contributions made respectively by the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and others.

Frederick Temple refused to repudiate his associates, and it was only at a much later date that he decided to withdraw his essay.

In politics Frederick Temple was a follower of William Ewart Gladstone, and he approved of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland.

Frederick Temple wrote and spoke in favour of the Elementary Education Act 1870 of William Edward Forster, and was an active member of the Endowed Schools Commission.

Gladstone stood firm, and Frederick Temple was consecrated on 21 December 1869, by John Jackson, Bishop of London.

Frederick Temple's normal working day at this time was one of fourteen or fifteen hours, though under the strain blindness was rapidly coming on.

Between 1871 and 1902 Frederick Temple was a governor of Sherborne School.

Frederick Temple was zealous in the cause of foreign missions, and in a sermon preached at the opening of the new century he urged that a supreme obligation rested upon Britain at this epoch in the world's history to seek to evangelise all nations.

Frederick Temple was interred in Canterbury Cathedral four days later, where his grave is located in the cloister garden.

Frederick Temple had a lifelong interest in the relationship between science and religion.

In 1860 at the famous meeting of the British Association which saw the debate between Thomas Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce, Frederick Temple preached a sermon welcoming the insights of evolution.

Frederick Temple married in 1876 Beatrice Blanche Lascelles, youngest daughter of Right Hon.

Frederick Temple's mother was Lady Caroline Georgiana Howard, daughter of another Whig politician George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle.

The Frederick Temple Reading Room and Museum at Rugby School is named after him, and contains an 1869 bust of him by Thomas Woolner.