10 Facts About Renn Hampden

Renn Dickson Hampden was an English Anglican clergyman.

Renn Hampden administered the diocese with tolerance and charity without being involved in any further controversy for nearly twenty years.

Renn Hampden was born in Barbados, where his father was colonel of militia, on Good Friday in 1793, and was educated at Oriel College, Oxford.

Election to these fellowships was by special examination intended to select the best possible minds and Hampden became a member of the group known as the "Noetics" who were Whigs in politics and freely critical of traditional religious orthodoxy.

Renn Hampden was reputedly one of the milder but most learned of them.

Renn Hampden left the university in 1816 and held successively a number of curacies.

In 1829, Renn Hampden returned to Oxford and in May 1830 became one of the tutors at Oriel where a disagreement about the tutors' duties led to John Henry Newman, Hurrell Froude, and Robert Wilberforce being relieved of their duties.

Renn Hampden was chosen to deliver the prestigious Bampton Lectures for 1832, in which he attempted to disentangle the original truth of Christianity from later accretions and superstitions, particularly scholastic philosophy.

Renn Hampden then produced a second edition of the pamphlet and sent a copy to John Henry Newman who, while recognising its "tone of piety" regretted that the arguments of the work tended "altogether to make shipwreck of the Christian faith".

Renn Hampden became the chief target of a book on the subscription issue edited by Newman who accused Hampden of being a Socinian in it.