Frederick Temple - Bishoprics

Bishoprics

The appointment caused a fresh controversy. G. A. Denison, Archdeacon of Taunton, Lord Shaftesbury, and others formed a strong committee of protest, while Edward Pusey declared that "the choice was the most frightful enormity ever perpetrated by a prime minister." At the confirmation of his election, counsel was instructed to object to it, and in the voting the chapter was divided. Gladstone stood firm, and Temple was consecrated on 21 December 1869. There were murmurings among his clergy against what they deemed his harsh control, but his real kindness soon made itself felt, and, during the sixteen years of his tenure, he overcame the prejudices against him, so that when, on the death of Dr John Jackson in 1885, he was translated to London, the appointment gave general satisfaction. In 1884 he was Bampton Lecturer, taking for his subject "The Relations between Religion and Science." In 1885 he was elected honorary fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.

Dr Temple's tenancy of the bishopric of London saw him working harder than ever. His normal working day at this time was one of fourteen or fifteen hours, though under the strain blindness was rapidly coming on. Many of his clergy and candidates for ordination thought him a rather terrifying person, enforcing almost impossible standards of diligence, accuracy and preaching efficiency, but his manifest devotion to his work and his zeal for the good of the people won him general confidence. In London he continued as a tireless temperance worker, and the working class instinctively recognised him as their friend. When, in view of his growing blindness, he offered to resign the bishopric, he was urged to reconsider his proposal, and on the sudden death of Archbishop Benson in 1896, though now seventy-six years of age, he accepted the see of Canterbury.