Mandell Creighton
Mandell Creighton was a British historian, Anglican priest and bishop. The son of a successful cabinet-maker in north-west England, Creighton studied at the University of Oxford, focusing his scholarship on the Renaissance Papacy, and then became a don in 1866. He was appointed the first occupant of the Dixie Chair of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge in 1884. The following year, he also was engaged as the founding editor of The English Historical Review, the first English-language academic journal in its field. In these posts, he helped to establish history as an independent academic discipline in England.
In addition to his work as a historian, Creighton had a career in the clergy of the Church of England from the mid-1870s until his death. He served as a parish priest in Embleton, Northumberland, and later, successively, as a canon residentiary of Worcester Cathedral, Bishop of Peterborough and Bishop of London. His moderation and practicality drew praise from Queen Victoria and won notice from politicians. In later years, he was appointed to various positions of trust, including the Privy Council, and it was widely thought that he would have become Archbishop of Canterbury had his death, at the age of 57, not supervened.
As a historian, Creighton's magnum opus was A History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, published in five volumes between 1882 and 1894. His historical work received mixed reviews. He was praised for scrupulous even-handedness, but criticised for not taking a stand against historical excesses. He was firm in asserting that public figures should be judged for their public acts, not private ones. He believed that the Church of England was uniquely shaped by its particular English circumstances, and he saw it as the soul of the nation.
Creighton was married to the author and future women's suffrage activist Louise Creighton, and the couple had seven children.
Early childhood, 1843–1857
Mandell Creighton was born on 5 July 1843 in the border country city of Carlisle, Cumberland ; he was the eldest child of Sarah and Robert Creighton. His mother was a daughter of Thomas Mandell, a yeoman farmer from Bolton, Cumberland. His father, a carpenter, built a successful cabinet-making business in Carlisle. Mandell's younger siblings were James, Mary and Mary Ellen. In 1850, when Mandell was seven Sarah Creighton died unexpectedly. Robert, who never remarried and seldom spoke of his wife again, raised the children with help from his unmarried sister, who came to live with the family; Creighton recalled her as a kind mother-substitute to the children.A self-made man, Robert Creighton continually expounded the virtues of hard work. Mandell's younger brother James joined his father's business, was twice elected mayor of Carlisle, and later became a director of the North British Railway. Polly recalled her childhood as "horridly unhappy". Her formal schooling was limited, but she devoted her adult life to promoting the education of children, and in 1927 became the first woman granted the freedom of the city of Carlisle. The family living quarters, above the shop, were spacious but spartan, with little decoration and few books. Robert was short-tempered and family life could be fraught. There was a strong sense of duty in the household but affection was rarely expressed openly.
Creighton's education began in a nearby dame school. In 1852 he moved to the Carlisle Cathedral School. Under the influence of an inspirational headmaster, the Rev William Bell, he began to read voraciously and excel academically. In November 1857 he took the King's Scholarship examination for admission to Durham School located away. As his Carlisle teachers had not prepared him for translation of Latin verse, he left a portion of the exam unanswered and felt sure he had failed. The examiners assessed his overall performance as good and decided to accept him, offering him a scholarship. In February 1858 the 15-year-old Creighton left Carlisle to become a boarder at Durham.
Durham School, 1858–1862
Durham School required its students to attend services in Durham Cathedral on Sundays and holy days. The medieval cathedral's high-church ceremony made a lasting impression on Creighton. It became a focus of his religious life and would later influence his choice of career. Durham's headmaster, Henry Holden, a classical scholar and an educational reformer, was soon taking an interest in the new student. With Holden's encouragement, Creighton began to win prizes in classical subjects, and also English and French. Other pupils came seeking his help in translating passages from their classical studies; they gave him the nickname "Homer" on account of his quickness at construing. During his last year at Durham, he was promoted to head boy of the school, a position that appealed to his strong wish to inspire people, especially younger boys. Although he aimed to do so by setting an example with his own morality, corporal punishment was then the norm in schools, and he did not hesitate to use it. In a solemn letter written to his successor as head boy he wrote of the punishment for drunkenness, beastliness, bullying and stealing: "I strongly recommend giving a fellow a thrashing ... and remember, never thrash a fellow a little, always hard".Creighton was severely short-sighted; he also had double vision, which forced him to read with one eye closed, until a London oculist prescribed glasses to correct the fault. As his poor sight inhibited his participation in sports he took with enthusiasm to walking. His tours of the countryside, often undertaken with companions, could cover more than a day and last several days. Walking gave him many opportunities to exercise his curiosity about the local botany and architecture. The habit was to remain with him for the rest of his life.
In the spring of 1862 Creighton applied unsuccessfully for a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. He applied next to Merton College, Oxford, for a classical postmastership. The application was successful and Creighton arrived in Oxford in October 1862. He continued to take a keen interest in Durham School, and once walked there from Oxford to hear speeches at a school function.
Oxford undergraduate, 1862–1866
Creighton's annual postmastership grant of was enough to cover his tuition at Merton, but little more. For his other expenses he had to apply to his father, who treated him quite generously. Creighton lived economically in college attic rooms for most of his time at Merton. In his last year he moved out of college to share rooms in the High with George Saintsbury, the future author and critic of English and French literature, and wine connoisseur, with whom he developed a shared liking for absinthe.Merton was a small college, which Creighton later described as "a very cosmopolitan place, made up of all sorts of men, with all sorts of tastes. There were rich men, poor men, reading men, idle men, all meeting on terms of mutual respect and with perfect frankness". Merton was much favoured by undergraduates from public school backgrounds who had more inclination to sports than to serious study. Creighton was not one such, and his poor eyesight prevented him from playing cricket and football, but he was able to join the college rowing team. Walking continued to be his principal physical recreation. He recalled, "I used to take a train and go somewhere, and walk through the villages, see the churches, study the architecture, and speculate on the conditions of life which must have been the outcome of these surroundings".
Creighton read voraciously and widely. Among his Merton friends he was dubbed "The Professor", or "P". The writers and poets of whose works he became fond included Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson and Swinburne. He was becoming politically aware, embracing a moderate liberalism. He joined the Oxford Union, and although he seldom spoke in debates there he was elected Union president in 1867. He especially honed his skills in informal conversations, conducted anywhere and everywhere, about topics great and small, rising above what Gladstone later dubbed "Oxford's agony"—the habit of overestimating the importance of Oxford's everyday disputes.
In his second year, Creighton and three other students became inseparable, both during academic terms and vacations, forming a group called "The Quadrilateral". The group friendship was intense, like many such in that time. Although Creighton had a large circle of male friends, he did not form any close friendships with women during this time. In his final term, he wrote to a friend, "ladies in general are very unsatisfactory mental food: they seem to have no particular thoughts or ideas". About Creighton's religious practice during this time, the historian James Kirby notes that he "attended daily communion, observed fasts, and took an interest in liturgy, becoming, as his biographer—his wife Louise—later said, 'a decided High Churchman'".
Academically, Creighton's goal was an honours degree in literae humaniores, the study of Greek and Roman classical literature, philosophy, and ancient history. In the final examinations, in the spring of his fourth year, he received first-class honours. He was drawn from classical to medieval history by a lecture by W. W. Shirley, the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History; the works of William Morris, John Ruskin, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti further enhanced this interest. Unlike historians of a generation earlier, such as William Stubbs and E. A. Freeman, students could now gain a supplementary degree in law and history. After six months' study Creighton took the examinations in that school in Autumn 1866. He had not allowed himself enough time to read all the relevant literature and achieved only a second class degree. His first in literae humaniores took precedence and the classics professor Benjamin Jowett suggested that Creighton apply for a teaching fellowship at Balliol. In the event he did not need to: his own college, Merton, elected him as a probationary fellow in December 1866.