Reginald Heber - Memorials and Legacy

Memorials and Legacy

Although Heber's episcopate had been brief he had made a considerable impression, and news of his death brought many tributes from around India. Sir Charles Grey, an old Oxford friend who was serving as Calcutta's Chief Justice, spoke of Heber's cheerfulness, his lack of self-importance, his good humour, patience and kindness. Flags were flown at half-mast in Madras and Calcutta, and the Governor-General ordered a salute of 42 guns—one for each completed year of the bishop's life. In several cities public subscriptions were opened to raise funds for monuments. In St John's church in Trichinopoly, initially a simple plaque above the grave recorded the date and place of Heber's death; this was in due course made much more elaborate. In St George's church, Madras, a large sculpture by Francis Chantrey was erected, depicting Heber ministering to members of his flock. Reflecting Heber's interest in the training of local ordinands, further funds were raised to provide Heber scholarships at Bishop's College; in Trichinopoly a school founded by the German missionary Christian Friedrich Schwarz became the Heber Memorial School.

It took four months for reports of Heber's death to reach England. At Oxford, representatives of Brasenose and All Souls opened a fund for an appropriate memorial; this idea was taken over by Williams-Wynn, who wanted a national rather than an Oxford-based monument. From the large sum collected, Chantrey was paid £3,000 for a huge marble sculpture that was placed in St Paul's Cathedral, London. More modest memorials were raised in the parish churches at Hodnet and Malpas.

Heber was soon commemorated in print; as well as the publication of his hymns collection in 1827, the journal that he had kept during his northern India tour of 1824–25 was published in 1828 and proved a great commercial success. Less popular was the three-volume biography and letters collection that Amelia published in 1830. In the ensuing years various collections of Heber's poetry appeared. Hughes observes that although some of the lighter verses are neat and amusing, the general quality is such that had Heber been only a poet, he would quickly have been forgotten. He has achieved a more lasting niche as a hymn-writer, although Betjeman observes that his militant imagery and the imperial attitudes underlying some of his verses have rendered many of his hymns unacceptable in the modern world. According to Hughes, among his hymns still widely sung are the Epiphany hymn "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning"; "The Son of God goes forth to war", dedicated to the church's saints and martyrs, and the Trinity Sunday hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty". This last is probably the most widely known of all Trinity hymns and owes a great deal of its popularity to John Bacchus Dykes's tune "Nicea": Watson observes that the tune's "magnificent grandeur carries the long lines effortlessly". Hughes mentions two more Heber hymns that, he says, deserve to be better known: "God that madest earth and heaven" and "By cool Siloam's shady rill".

Heber's pioneering commitment to the mission fields was expressed, half a century after his death, by the author Charlotte Mary Yonge: "Heber was one of the first English churchmen who perceived that to enlarge her borders and strengthen her stakes was the bounden duty of the living Church". He led through example, and through his writings which "did much to spread knowledge of, and therefore interest in, the field of labour in which he died".

In July 1830 Amelia Heber married Count Demetrius Valsamachi, a Greek diplomat who became a British subject and was later knighted by Queen Victoria. Amelia lived until 1870. Her daughter Emily married Algernon Percy, the son of the Bishop of Carlisle, and the younger daughter Harriet married a son of Heber's friend John Thornton.