Henry Beeching

Professor, Poet, Priest

Peter Fanning

• Publisher: Sacristy Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781789592511
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

Henry Beeching (1859–1919), Dean of Norwich, was the quintessential Man of Letters. A popular preacher and active for the cause of reform in the Church, he was also a poet, eminent scholar and a widely read journalist. Seen through the spectrum of national issues and challenges, Peter Fanning highlights Beeching's wide appeal both as a Christian thinker, literary scholar and a humourist. Many of the most celebrated scholars, poets and clergy were friends and correspondents; amongst them was the enduring relationship with his uncle, the poet Robert Bridges. Above all, Henry Beeching was a literary scholar and lover of Shakespeare who married this passion to a love of God.

A contemporary journalist wrote that Henry Beeching was "widely known as a poet, preacher and professor. Many men are content to make a reputation in any one of these department. Mr Beeching has made a mark in each." It is the breadth of his interests and achievements that is unusual. This first full-length biography covers Beeching's character and his many interests and achievements, from the satirical and scandalous "Balliol epigrams" to sermons during the First World War and the creation of the Memorial Chapel at Norwich Cathedral.

Table of contents

• Illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1. City boyhood—Oxford bliss
• Chapter 2. Mossley Hill
• Chapter 3. A country parson
• Chapter 4. Murder most foul and domestic bliss
• Chapter 5. Love’s looking glass
• Chapter 6. The widening pool
• Chapter 7. The elusive lure of London
• Chapter 8. Teaching and preaching as a “man to men”
• Chapter 9. Bloomsbury and the Black Book
• Chapter 10. Character and “The coming man”—Beeching and the Bard
• Chapter 11. Prayers and Provincial papers
• Chapter 12. Westminster at war
• Chapter 13. Interregnum
• Chapter 14. Norwich and the Deanery
• Chapter 15. Armageddon
• Chapter 16. A question of character: Shakespeare and the Dean
• Chapter 17. Domestic trials and tribulations
• Chapter 18. A land fit for heroes
• Bibliography