In the Shadow of Death Archibald Campbell Tait

Archbishop of Canterbury 1st Edition John

Witheridge pdf download
https://ebookgate.com/product/in-the-shadow-of-death-archibald-campbell-tait-archbishop-of-
canterbury-1st-edition-john-witheridge/

★★★★★ 4.9/5.0 (45 reviews) ✓ 85 downloads ■ TOP RATED

"Amazing book, clear text and perfect formatting!" - John R.

DOWNLOAD EBOOK
 In the Shadow of Death Archibald Campbell Tait Archbishop of
Canterbury 1st Edition John Witheridge pdf download

TEXTBOOK EBOOK EBOOK GATE

Available Formats

■ PDF eBook Study Guide TextBook

EXCLUSIVE 2025 EDUCATIONAL COLLECTION - LIMITED TIME

INSTANT DOWNLOAD VIEW LIBRARY

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

Archbishop Fisher 1945 1961 Church State and World The

Archbishops of Canterbury Series 1st Edition Chandler

https://ebookgate.com/product/archbishop-fisher-1945-1961-church-
state-and-world-the-archbishops-of-canterbury-series-1st-edition-
chandler/
ebookgate.com

Tribebook Shadow Lords Campbell

https://ebookgate.com/product/tribebook-shadow-lords-campbell/

ebookgate.com

Castings Practice The 10 Rules of Castings 1st Edition

Campbell John

https://ebookgate.com/product/castings-practice-the-10-rules-of-
castings-1st-edition-campbell-john/

ebookgate.com

Naval Weapons of World War Two John Campbell

https://ebookgate.com/product/naval-weapons-of-world-war-two-john-
campbell/

ebookgate.com
Campbell s Pathophysiology Notes 2nd Edition John Campbell

https://ebookgate.com/product/campbell-s-pathophysiology-notes-2nd-
edition-john-campbell/

ebookgate.com

Italian Film in the Shadow of Auschwitz Millicent Marcus

https://ebookgate.com/product/italian-film-in-the-shadow-of-auschwitz-
millicent-marcus/

ebookgate.com

Latest Trends in ELF Research Alasdair Archibald

https://ebookgate.com/product/latest-trends-in-elf-research-alasdair-
archibald/

ebookgate.com

Shadow of the Silk Road Colin Thubron

https://ebookgate.com/product/shadow-of-the-silk-road-colin-thubron/

ebookgate.com

Bushcraft 101 A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness

Survival 1st Edition Canterbury

https://ebookgate.com/product/bushcraft-101-a-field-guide-to-the-art-
of-wilderness-survival-1st-edition-canterbury/

ebookgate.com
In the Shadow of Death
 In the Shadow of Death
A Life of Archibald Campbell Tait,
Archbishop of Canterbury

John Witheridge
Hardback ISBN: 9780227177433
Paperback ISBN: 9780227177440
PDF ISBN: 9780227907405
ePub ISBN: 9780227907412

James Clarke & Co.

C

Click on the link above to see our full catalogue

for more excellent titles in
Hardback, Paperback, PDF, ePub and Kindle!

Would you like to join our Mailing List?

Click here!

Enjoyed this book?

Review it on Amazon so others can too!
Click here!
 In the Shadow of Death
A Life of Archibald Campbell Tait,
Archbishop of Canterbury

John Witheridge

C
James Clarke & Co
 James Clarke & Co
P.O. Box 60
Cambridge
CB1 2NT
United Kingdom

www.jamesclarke.co
[email protected]

Hardback ISBN: 978 0 227 17743 3

Paperback ISBN: 978 0 227 17744 0
PDF ISBN: 978 0 227 90740 5
ePub ISBN: 978 0 227 90741 2

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A record is available from the British Library

First published by James Clarke & Co, 2021

Copyright © John Witheridge, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this edition may be reproduced,

stored electronically or in any retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
prior written permission from the Publisher
([email protected]).
For Dora, Arthur, Wilfred, Phoebe, Freddie, Zoë and Theodore
‘Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed
but the shadows of the living.’
Sir Thomas Browne,
The Garden of Cyrus
 Contents

Illustrations viii
Family Trees ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
1. Scottish Inheritance 1
2. A Balliol Man 17
3. Discreet and Learned Minister 30
4. Dr Arnold’s Successor 46
5. In Death’s Dark Vale 63
6. The Greatest Diocese of the World 75
7. New Disputes and New Fears 90
8. Primate of All England 108
9. Wrangles and Judgments 132
10. The Shadows Lengthen 148
Source Notes 169
Select Bibliography 183
Index 187
 Illustrations

1. Tait’s grandfather with a grandson by Sir Henry Raeburn 42

2. Tait’s maternal grandfather, Sir Ilay Campbell 42
3. Tait’s father 42
4. Susan, Tait’s mother 42
5. Balliol College, the front quadrangle 43
6. Rugby School, a view from the Close 43
7. Thomas Arnold by Thomas Phillips 44
8. Arthur Stanley by Lowes Cato Dickinson 44
9. Benjamin Jowett by George Richmond 44
10. A photograph of Frederick Temple 44
11. Headmaster of Rugby by George Richmond, 1850 45
12. Archbishop of Canterbury by George Richmond, 1880 126
13. ‘An Earnest and Liberal Primate’, Vanity Fair, 1869 127
14. ‘Black Sheep’, a cartoon in Punch, mocking Tait’s 128
Public Worship Act 1874
15. Fulham Palace 129
16. Lambeth Palace, Morton’s Tower 129
17. Catharine Tait, c. 1869 130
18. Crauford Tait, aged 26 130
19. Edith, Lucy and Agnes Tait, c. 1870 130
20. A house party at Renishaw Hall, c. 1876: Edith is standing 131
fourth from the left and Tait is seated in front of her
21. Tait with Randall and Edith Davidson, c. 1879 131
 Acknowledgements

There are many people who deserve thanks for their help with this book.
First, the archivists and librarians at Lambeth Palace Library; Balliol
College’s Historical Collections Centre, the Bodleian, the Oxfordshire
History Centre, and Pusey House in Oxford; The Edinburgh Academy;
Rugby School; Carlisle Cathedral and the Cumbria Archive Centre; and
Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden. Kind friends have read chapters and
offered invaluable advice: John Jones of Balliol, to whom I am especially
grateful, and also Allan Chapman, Patrick Derham, James Kazi, James
Newcome and Stephen Shuttleworth. Annamaria, my daughter-in-law, lent
her enviable technical skills, and Paddy Gallagher expertly photographed
the illustrations. Robin Darwall-Smith readily gave permission to quote
from his family papers, and Alison and Patrick Derham generously allowed
me to live in comfort while researching at Lambeth. I am very grateful too
to Adrian Brink, Managing Director of James Clarke & Co., for agreeing
to publish, and for the help and guidance received from the editorial team
there. I remain indebted to the late Professor Hamish Swanston, who fifty
years ago inspired a lifetime’s fascination with the Victorian Church and
its extraordinary dramatis personae. Most importantly, as always, I am
thankful to Sarah for her unwavering patience and encouragement.
I have dedicated the book to my grandchildren. Whether or not the
history of the nineteenth-century Church of England will be of interest to
any of them remains to be seen, but what is certain is that, for both good
and ill, they will find it a very different Church from the one to which I
hope they will belong.
 Preface

There were six Archbishops of Canterbury during Queen Victoria’s long

reign. Archibald Campbell Tait was her favourite, and the most powerful
and influential. Not since William Laud in the seventeenth century had
a Primate of All England possessed a better understanding of his office,
or exercised a more active and statesmanlike role in Parliament and the
life of the nation. So too in the Church, where Tait was not content to
be an ecclesiastical figurehead like many archbishops before him. He was
never slow to intervene and give a lead, not least in the bitter conflicts and
controversies that defined his fourteen years at Lambeth.
Born in Edinburgh in 1811, Tait studied at the University of Glasgow
before moving south to Oxford with an exhibition at Balliol College.
There he performed brilliantly and was awarded a fellowship. His pupils
from Rugby School encouraged him to succeed the legendary Dr Arnold
as Headmaster. After eight years at Rugby, Tait was appointed Dean of
Carlisle. It was here that five of his seven young children died of scarlet
fever. Tait owed his next appointment as Bishop of London to Queen
Victoria, who was moved by his personal tragedy. Though lacking suitable
experience, he proved a diligent, innovative and prudent bishop, and was
elevated to Canterbury in 1868. Here Tait faced severely testing challenges,
both at home and abroad. The Church of England was at the height of its
power and importance during these mid-Victorian years, but signs that it
had reached its peak were already apparent.
Tait’s distinguished public career was accompanied by a series of personal
calamities that touched the morbid sensibilities of his age. He was born
with a club foot, which was brutally corrected as a child but left him with
a limp. His mother died suddenly when he was two, and at nine, he and
his closest brother contracted scarlet fever, which for the brother was fatal.
While at Rugby, Tait nearly died from rheumatic fever. His heart and lungs
were permanently damaged and never again was he far from dying. The
xiv In the Shadow of Death

loss of his daughters at Carlisle left permanent and painful scars, and his
last years as archbishop were marred by the death of his only son. His wife
never recovered from this sadness, and she died six months later. Despite all
this, Tait drove himself hard to fulfil his duties, and his faith and courage
endured, though his private journals are haunted by anxiety about illness
and a brooding expectation of death.
Tait was always an outsider but used this to advantage. He was the
first Scottish Archbishop of Canterbury, and had been brought up as a
Presbyterian. At Oxford he was confirmed and ordained as a member of the
Church of England, but he never strayed far from his stricter Protestant roots.
His Rugby pupils introduced him to the liberal ideas of Thomas Arnold,
especially his critical historical approach to the Bible and his enthusiasm for a
national Church. Tait combined these with his Presbyterianism in an unusual
and sometimes conflicted blend. Tait was an unconventional clergyman, as
much, if not more, at home in the secular world as in the Church. He
preferred Parliament to Convocation, and often felt more sympathy for
the views of laymen than those of the clergy. He found ecclesiasticism and
what Arnold called ‘priestcraft’ abhorrent. His mind owed more to his legal
ancestry (both his grandfathers had been distinguished Edinburgh lawyers)
than to the often idealistic and dogmatic thinking of the clergy. Tait was able
to stand back from Church controversies, and approach them in a way that
was incisive, independent and judicious.
Essential sources for a Life of Tait are both limited and extensive. He was
a prolific official letter writer, and the Tait Papers in the library at Lambeth
Palace include 55 hefty volumes of letters sent and received while Bishop of
London, and 135 while Archbishop of Canterbury. There are, however, only
28 volumes of personal correspondence. Such letters may have been destroyed,
but this seems unlikely, especially as so much material is preserved, including
75 private journals. As for previous biographies, there is, very surprisingly, only
one: the two volume Life of Tait by Randall Davidson and William Benham,
published in 1891, just nine years after Tait’s death. It was written in the
Victorian Life and Letters genre, pioneered nearly fifty years before by Arthur
Stanley’s biography of his headmaster and idol, Thomas Arnold. The Life of Tait
shares with the Life of Arnold the same advantages and disadvantages, being an
invaluable source of information but also something of a panegyric. Benham,
who assisted Davidson, knew and admired Tait, and had already edited his
memoir of his wife and son. Davidson himself had been Tait’s chaplain and
a substitute son, and was married to his daughter. When the biography was
published, the ambitious Davidson had been appointed Dean of Windsor by
Queen Victoria, having impressed her with his description of the death of Tait.
There is no doubt that he wished to do the same with his account of Tait’s life.
 Chapter One
Scottish Inheritance

‘There my young footsteps in infancy wander’d,

My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid.’

Dean Stanley of Westminster spent many an hour in the damp vaults of the
Abbey, searching by candlelight for royal remains. He acquired a macabre
reputation as a tomb raider; Queen Victoria called him a body snatcher.
He found the bones of Charles II, William III and Queen Anne in a row
under Henry VII’s Chapel. In February 1869, after a long and careful
investigation, he discovered beneath the same chapel the coffin of James I.
Archbishop Tait happened to be in the Jerusalem Chamber in the
deanery, chairing a meeting of a royal commission on ritual. In his
excitement, the dean sent a messenger to summon the archbishop. As soon
as Tait arrived, Stanley asked for space to be cleared. ‘Stand back! Stand
back!’, he commanded, ‘and let the first Scottish archbishop look upon the
first Scottish king of England.’1

***

Archibald Campbell Tait was born at home in Edinburgh at Christmas in

1811 and was the ninth and last child in the family. His sister Charlotte,
eleven at the time, remembered his birth as different from the others.
‘There was some mystery in the house, for there were grave looks and
shakings of the head, not only among the servants, but also among the lady
friends who came and went.’2 When at last Charlotte was allowed to see
her baby brother, she found his feet covered with bandages and was told
he was club-footed. The disability was not so easily corrected then, and the
parents’ distress was all the worse because their two-year-old son, Ilay, had
a paralysed leg. It seemed that both boys were to be deprived of an active
childhood and would face an uncertain future.
2 In the Shadow of Death

The boys’ grandfathers had both been distinguished lawyers and

members of Edinburgh’s élite. John Tait, who had died in 1800, had
been a Writer to the Signet,* and Sir Ilay Campbell, Bt, their maternal
grandfather, had been Lord President of the Court of Session, the
supreme civil court in Scotland. The Taits came from Ludquharn in
Aberdeenshire, where for generations they had been ‘bonnet lairds’,
yeoman farmers whose blue beret-like caps signified a simple life removed
from the fashions of the towns. John was one of the first to move south to
seek his fortune. In 1750 he settled in Edinburgh where he was articled
in the office of a renowned solicitor, Ronald Crauford, who took a liking
to John Tait, trained him well, and handed him his successful firm when
he died. Tait’s portrait by Sir Henry Raeburn depicts determination,
kindness and prosperity.†
John Tait was thirty-six when in 1763 he married Charles Murdoch, a
beautiful and spirited young woman. Her parents were Jacobites and she
had been named after Bonnie Prince Charlie, in whose cause the Murdochs
had fought and suffered. She was related to many of the leading families in
Scotland and claimed descent from Robert de Bruce. She brought to the
Tait coat of arms two pairs of ravens, pierced with arrows, symbolising a
legend that the king’s hiding place had been threatened by birds hovering
above it before a Murdoch shot them. More importantly, Charles also
brought the Taits a change of Church. Like many in the north of Scotland
they had been staunch Episcopalians. Charles, however, was Presbyterian,
despite her family’s loyalty to the Stuarts, and she determined to bring up
her only son as a member of the Kirk. This son was Crauford, Archibald’s
father, who was born in 1766.
Sir Ilay Campbell had married Susan Murray, the sister of Lord
Henderland, another judge in the Court of Session. ‘Bonnie Susie Murray’
was a celebrated beauty with social graces and a ready wit. Their large house
in Park Place, on the outskirts of Edinburgh’s Old Town, provided a salon
that brought together an unusual collection of rising young lawyers, visitors
from England, and ministers of the Scottish Church. Walter Scott was an
occasional visitor.
The Campbells had two sons and seven daughters. Crauford Tait grew
up next door, and in 1795 he married Susan, one of the younger daughters.
She had inherited her mother’s name and beauty but her character was
kinder and less assertive. Crauford’s father lent them his house;‡ he had
*. Originally solicitors in Scotland entitled to supervise the use of the king’s signet,
the private seal of the early Scottish monarchs.
†. See Illustrations, p. 42.
‡. 2 Park Place, later demolished to make way for new university buildings where a bronze
1. Scottish Inheritance 3

been widowed thirteen years before and now spent most of his time at his
Harviestoun estate near Dollar in Clackmannanshire, which he had bought
in 1780. When he died in 1800 he left the estate to Crauford, as well as a
house on the shores of Loch Fyne.
Crauford had inherited his mother’s romantic imagination but not his
father’s prudence and good sense. As laird, he devoted his time, legacy,
and eccentricity to making extravagant improvements at Harviestoun. The
house was expanded and transformed into a small castle, and in addition, he
bought from the Duke of Argyll the adjacent estate of Castle Campbell. He
had the village and highroad removed and rebuilt half a mile away. A walled
garden was created on the site of the village and carefully laid out with
Milton’s description of the Garden of Eden as his guide.* He introduced
all sorts of inventions of his own, including machinery for chopping cattle
fodder, and a spit in the kitchen turned by water pressure from a mountain
stream. Charlotte remembered the poultry-houses as ‘the marvel of the
whole countryside: storey upon storey of most comfortable chambers rose
one above the other, reached by a flight of little stairs made of bars, up
which the various inhabitants ascended with the utmost decorum.’3
Crauford was a warm-hearted father and Susan a gentle and patient
mother. ‘It was a part of my father’s creed that family affection was in itself
a religion,’ wrote Charlotte, ‘and, as such, would accompany each child as
it grew up, a constant protection from evil; and there is no doubt that he
acted upon that principle, for there could not be a happier home than ours.
Our schoolroom troubles vanished in the influence of his bright genial
temperament, and the over-strict observances of the Scottish Sabbaths were
tempered into happy Sundays when he was at home.’4 Spring, summer and
autumn were spent at Harviestoun, and the older children remembered
carefree days spent outdoors, pony-trekking, rambling, and trout-fishing
in ‘the clear winding Devon’.5
In 1810, the year before Archibald was born, there was an extravagant
military spectacle at the estate to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of King
George III’s accession. A massive G.R. was suspended from the turrets
above the front door of the house. Crauford was commander of the
Clackmannanshire Yeomanry, who ‘wheeled and curveted round the house,
fighting sham battles and performing the most warlike feasts’.6 Fears of a
French invasion encouraged Crauford to construct a massive horse-drawn
caravan to carry the family away to the other side of the hills the moment
the French fleet appeared in the Firth of Forth. Instead, it was used to take
them to church on rainy Sundays.
bust of Archbishop Tait by Mario Raggi, unveiled in 1885, marks his birthplace.
*. Paradise Lost, iv, 132-65.
4 In the Shadow of Death

***

The future archbishop was baptised on 10 February 1812, and named after
his maternal uncle, Archibald Campbell. All his brothers and sisters were
present except John, the eldest, who was away at school at Harrow. Susan
was fifteen, James fourteen, Charlotte eleven, Marion eight, Thomas six,
Crauford four, and Ilay two. The service was held in their house in Park
Place and taken by the minister of the high kirk of St Giles. ‘The newly
named Archibald Campbell was a lovely baby’, wrote Charlotte. ‘His long
robes hid the poor little feet, and if there was any difference in the welcome
given to him from that which greeted those who had come before him,
it was only that it was even more tender and loving, and, as our mother
passed her treasure from friend to friend, admiring smiles saluted him and
soothed the distress she had hid away in her heart.’7
Two years later, the family was together again in Edinburgh to celebrate
the new year and Scotland’s Hansel Monday.* Early in the morning, the
excited children crowded round their mother’s bed to receive their gifts.
An hour later she suffered a sudden, unexpected heart attack and died. She
was thirty-six.
Crauford now had the daunting task of caring for nine children
alone. Furthermore, Susan’s optimistic nature had helped blind him to
the inevitable consequences of his extravagance. The shock of her death
shattered Crauford’s enchanted world and he had to face considerable
debts, which increased with the end of the war with France and the sharp
fall in the value of land. This is not to say that the family was destitute; they
still maintained two nurses, a manservant, a housemaid and a cook. But life
was not as it had been, and its carefree happiness would never return.
Their nurse, Betty Morton, took charge of the youngest children, Archie,
now aged two, and Ilay (‘Camie’), four. Their disabilities required constant
attention and the two boys became inseparable. Prevented as they were from
normal boyish pursuits, they spent their time together, reading and looking
at pictures, drawing and painting, or playing games. Archie was gentle and
considerate like his mother and, presciently, his father nicknamed him ‘the
little bishop’. Betty became a mother to the boys and her influence on Archie
was considerable. She was a devout Presbyterian and she taught them her
own stern and earnest religion. She made sure that every day in the nursery
began and ended with prayer, with Sundays set aside for Bible study. Betty’s
plain and practical Protestant faith became deeply rooted in Archie, and
though in his teens he abandoned her strict Calvinism, her straightforward
Bible-based gospel would always remain at the heart of his beliefs.
*. The first Monday in January, when ‘hansels’ (presents) were given.
1. Scottish Inheritance 5

Archie’s eldest sister, Susan, was sixteen when their mother died, and she
too did her best to take her place. But four years later, in 1818, she married
a distant English relative, Sir George Sitwell, Bt, and moved south to the
stately Renishaw Hall in Derbyshire. They were both twenty-one. ‘It must,
indeed,’ wrote their daughter, ‘have been hard to find a prettier bride than
my mother when she first arrived at Renishaw, with her shower of golden,
or light auburn, curls, and her peculiarly slight and graceful figure. . . . Her
boy husband was just six foot high, and was also very fair in complexion,
with remarkably dark-blue, kindly eyes.’8
Sitwell shared his wife’s devotion to her brothers and sisters who spent
the first of many summers at Renishaw. This was the prosperous world of
the English squirearchy, and very different from the family’s life at home.
Charlotte described the rector of the parish and his wife as guests at dinner,
both of whom, she says, were fashionably dressed and with impeccable
manners. ‘A more complete contrast to the minister and his wife so well-
known at the time throughout Scotland could not well be imagined.’9
The rector was a nephew of the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, and his
wife a niece of the Earl of Shaftesbury. Furthermore, sabbatarian scruples
were set aside for horse-racing, allowing the Sitwells and the older Taits
to arrive in Doncaster on Sunday in good time for the St Leger Stakes.
‘So after morning church and luncheon the Renishaw party set off; a very
magnificent turn-out it was, – a beautiful barouche with four handsome
bay horses, and two more exactly to match with outriders. . . . What may
have been the private thoughts of two sisters carefully educated in the
Presbyterian Church, which in those days scarcely sanctioned a summer’s
evening walk on the Sabbath, may easily be conjectured.’10
When the Taits returned to Scotland, Camie, eight, and Archie,
six, remained at Renishaw, but not for long. The Sitwells had heard
of a family in Lancashire who were said to perform wonders in cases
of lameness. These were the so-called ‘Whitworth Doctors’. A century
before, John Taylor, an itinerant farrier, had settled in Whitworth and
gained a reputation for mending the damaged limbs of animals. As his
fame spread, he and his brothers started to treat humans, and in time the
business passed to his son and nephews. The medical profession regarded
them all as quacks but their successes were indisputable. Susan wrote
to her father recommending these ‘doctors’, and reminding him that
nothing so far had cured or even eased the boys’ lameness. If he would
give permission, Sir George would take them to Whitworth and, at his
own expense, settle them there under the care of their nurse, and entrust
their treatment to the Taylors. Crauford agreed, and the party travelled
the sixty miles by carriage to Whitworth.
6 In the Shadow of Death

Fifty years later, Archbishop Tait gave Charlotte a detailed account of

exactly what happened at Whitworth:

Camie and myself, with dear old Betty, lived in the ‘Red Lion’, a
common public-house, but the best in the place. Our sitting-room
was the back parlour of the house, with a sanded floor, adjoining
the bar; our bedroom a garret upstairs. In one large bed I slept
with Betty, Camie in a smaller one close to it. We went to the
doctor’s every day early (for the very good reason that after nine
every morning he began to get drunk) to have the tin boots in
which he kept our legs encased properly arranged, and the progress
of the cure attended to. These tin boots hurt us very much, and I
have often marvelled how we were able to hobble about in them, as
we did all day long, except the short time Camie had lessons from
the village schoolmaster and read Latin with the clergyman of the
parish, Mr Porter. I cannot recollect ever doing anything in the way
of lessons during the nine months I was there. I do not remember
even reading story-books, but I used to wander about with all sorts
of mysterious thoughts, making plays to myself out of them, and
fighting all sorts of imaginary enemies with my stick or whatever
I could lay my hands upon. Camie and I amused ourselves very
well, and dear old Betty was very kind to us, helping us in every
way she could think of. During the nights we were distressed by the
tin boots, in which we were obliged to sleep, but by degrees we got
accustomed to them. . . . To these men, under Providence, we owed
our restoration to the perfect use of our limbs.11

Susan redressed Archie’s lack of education at Whitworth and taught him

to read. He was a clever child, and his disability had made him studious.
On his return to Edinburgh it was time to begin his formal education, and
he did so with Camie at Mr Ramsay’s private school, winning praise for his
industry and determination. Holidays were spent at Harviestoun where the
boys could now enjoy riding for the first time, and where on long country
rambles their father enthused them with his fascination with their family’s
history.
Archie and Camie remained close, and Archie was dreading the time
when his brother would leave home to join the navy. This had always been
Camie’s ambition, and now that his lameness had been healed there was no
obstacle in the way. He was to join the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth
in January 1821. But Archie was taken ill with scarlet fever and Camie’s
departure was delayed. This was the first appearance of a disease that was
1. Scottish Inheritance 7

to wreak havoc in Tait’s life. It was a serious attack and meant isolation
and missing Camie’s farewell party at Park Place. As soon as the party was
over, and Camie was going to bed, he too noticed that his throat was sore.
During the night the fever worsened and he became delirious. He died
three days later on 28 February, aged eleven.
The effect on nine-year-old Archie was severe. He had lost a brother
who had always been his dearest friend. He also felt personally responsible
for Camie’s death, since he must have been the cause of his infection.
Furthermore, this death, after his mother’s, started a lifetime’s concern
about his health and his sense of the fragility of life. ‘Paler than ever,’ wrote
Charlotte, ‘Archie returned to his books, a sad and solitary child. As the
months went on he gained but little strength, and those around him were
pained to see him always, always reading. “Put away your book, dear, and
go and play,” was often said; but the reply was ever a sad shake of the head,
with “I have no one to play with now.”’12

***

Tait started at Edinburgh’s High School in October 1821. The school

originated in the twelfth century as the seminary of Holyrood Abbey. After
the Reformation, Mary, Queen of Scots, transferred what was by then
a grammar school to the control of the town council. In the eighteenth
century it moved to a new building at the foot of Infirmary Street.* The
city was proud of its school’s long history, classical tradition and egalitarian
spirit. Almost every eminent Scotsman during the past century or more
had been educated there. By Tait’s time, however, the school’s popularity
had allowed it to become overcrowded and inefficient. More than 800 boys
were taught only by the rector (headmaster) and four other masters, with
as many as 250 pupils in the rector’s class. The curriculum consisted almost
entirely of Latin, and the method of learning was a matter of memorising
and reciting conjugations and declensions. Nonetheless, Tait’s three years
there were formative. Hard work, a quick mind and a strong memory
meant that by the time he left when he was twelve, he had mastered Latin
grammar and vocabulary, and was beginning to show a talent for translation
into verse.
The summer of 1824 was spent at Harviestoun, and in October Tait
started at the new Edinburgh Academy. His brother James had followed
John to Harrow, but this was now beyond his father’s means. Though there
was a risk in moving Tait from the High School, the new school had been
much vaunted, and promised a better and more enlightened education.
*. Now a department of the University of Edinburgh.
8 In the Shadow of Death

The Academy was the initiative of two former High School pupils,
Henry Cockburn and Leonard Horner.* Neither had enjoyed their
schooldays and they were aware of the High School’s shortcomings. Their
vision was clear and they pursued it in the face of opposition from the
city fathers. The Academy was to be built in the New Town, the gracious
Georgian development to the north of Princes Street, to which the more
prosperous Edinburgh residents had migrated.† There were still to be five
classes, as at the High School, but their sizes were to be contained by
restricting the school roll to a maximum of 600. Latin was to remain
at the heart of the curriculum, time spent on Greek was to increase,
geography was to be added, and masters to teach English, mathematics
and writing were to be appointed. The religious ethos was to be broadly
Presbyterian.
In just two years, £9,000 was raised, a three-acre plot purchased on
Henderson Row near Dundas Street, and the architect, William Burn,
engaged to design an imposing building in Palladian style. The foundation
stone was laid on 30 June 1823. Sir Walter Scott was one of the first
directors (governors), and the driving force behind the appointment of the
first rector, John Williams, whom he regarded as ‘the best Schoolmaster
in Europe’13. Williams had been at Balliol with Scott’s son-in-law and
biographer, John Gibson Lockhart, and had successfully tutored Scott’s
younger son for entrance to Oxford.
Tait was one of the 372 pupils who attended the opening ceremony on
1 October 1824.‡ He sat with the rector’s class in the new hall with its tiers
of hard wooden benches. His success in the entrance tests had placed him
with boys who were mostly two years older. Seventy years later, the rector
at the time commemorated the occasion in doggerel:

Weel nigh four hunder laddies thrangs

Upon the bonny opening day,
Moncreiffs, Bells, Balfours, Woods and Langs,
And Aytoun o’ the mellow lay,
And Tait wha hid (the clever chap)
A muckle mitre in his cap.14

*. Later Lord Cockburn, an Edinburgh advocate who rose to be a judge of the Court
of Session. Horner was a geologist and friend of Charles Darwin.
†. To meet the threat posed by the Academy, the High School was rebuilt on Calton
Hill and opened in 1829.
‡. Among these pupils was Henry Davidson, who was to become the father of Randall
Davidson, Tait’s chaplain, son-in-law and biographer, and a successor as Archbishop
of Canterbury.
1. Scottish Inheritance 9

Directors, masters, parents and important guests were also present to

hear a high-flown speech by Scott. He wanted the boys, he said, to learn
‘to venerate the Patriots and Heroes of our own Country, along with those
of Greece and Rome’, but he advised that, ‘next to a conscience void of
offence towards God and man’, the greatest possession they could have was
‘a well cultivated mind’.15
Williams proved an excellent appointment, and Tait was well taught
by him and admired his intellect and scholarship. It was said that only
Gladstone could recite Homer from memory as well as he could. There
were sixty-six boys in the rector’s class during that first year. They studied
two books of Virgil’s Aeneid, the four books of Horace’s Odes, and a book of
Livy’s Roman History. In Greek the range and extent of study was even more
impressive: Moore’s Greek Grammar, twelve of Lucian’s Fables, fourteen of
Anacreon’s Odes, and the first book of Xenophon’s Anabasis, in addition to
lessons in English, geography and mathematics. That meant six hours of
intensive work at school and as many again at home. ‘Our founders kept
their eye on utility – little or nothing on amenity’, observed J.C. Shairp,* a
pupil at the Academy from 1829:

In vain you would look there for the green ‘Playing-fields’ of Eton
by the shining Thames, or even for the green Close of Rugby with
its venerable elm-trees, and all the pleasant associations that gather
round these. These things the Academy did not affect. But it aimed at
and affected careful grounding, sound learning, and a most laborious
work. And the result has been that no Academy boy ever learned any
part of scholarship there which he had afterwards to unlearn, go where
he might. Ten continuous months of as faithful teaching and as hard
a grind as any school in Britain ever knew, – this is my impression in
looking back to four years spent within the Academy walls.16

Although the method of teaching at the Academy was less mechanical

than at the more Gradgrindian High School, too much emphasis was still
placed on repetition and learning by rote, and it was not possible to provide
the detailed textual scholarship, literary appreciation, and discussion of ideas
that were possible in the smaller sixth forms of the best English public schools.
Tait certainly had no difficulty conforming to the school’s regime (indeed
an essay with the title ‘On the Advantages Derivable from Laborious Study’
won him second prize in 1826), but it imposed a strain on his health. At
the end of his first term, Charlotte was concerned. ‘With his whole heart
*. Shairp followed Tait to Glasgow University where he too won a Snell exhibition to
Balliol.
10 In the Shadow of Death

he worked – too hard indeed, for when I and my husband* returned to

Edinburgh we found him pale as a little ghost. . . . He looked like a caged
spirit; he was so seriously ill that we put him immediately to bed.’17
Earlier in the term what became known as the Great Fires of Edinburgh
had provided the boys with an exciting distraction, despite the suffering it
caused.† Six weeks after the school opened they awoke to a heavy black pall
of smoke over the city. During the evening of 15 November 1824 a fire
had broken out in a workshop in a narrow alley in the Old Town. It spread
quickly to adjoining tenements and along the roofs of the Royal Mile, not
far from the High School. Twenty-four hours later a second fire erupted on
the corner of the High Street and Parliament Close, threatening Parliament
Hall, the law courts and St Giles’ Cathedral. The fires raged until rain came
on Wednesday evening. Huge crowds of spectators gathered, and the boys
of the Academy joined them as soon as school was over. ‘Judges, magistrates,
officers of state, dragoons, librarians, people described as heads of bodies, were
all mixed with the mob, all giving peremptory and inconsistent directions.’18
Being at school at the Academy was certainly an earnest and taxing
experience. There was neither time nor opportunity for Tait to make
close friends and there was very little on offer outside the classroom. The
emphasis was almost entirely academic, making an already studious boy
even more industrious and serious-minded. Regular examinations placed
the boys in strict class order, from top to bottom, and there were prestigious
prizes to reward the most able. These were presented on Exhibition Day at
the end of the summer term. The first was held on 29 July 1825:

It was a brilliant scene in the splendid Hall. . . with tier upon tier of
boys scrubbed and shining, their linen collars sparkling white over
Eton jackets of blue broad-cloth, white trousers of spotless ‘Russia
duck’ gleaming like satin, many of them wearing white gloves. The
Directors were ranged in their Box with the piles of prize books
and medals in front of them, the masters and Rector resplendent in
ceremonial academic robes, the gallery packed with proud parents,
guardians, shareholders and distinguished guests, including the
Rector and masters of the High School.19

Tait was announced as third in the rector’s class, a precocious achievement

for a boy of thirteen. He also won a prize for the best English essay, ‘On
the Advantages Derivable from the Study of History’, which he read aloud:
*. Charlotte had married (Sir) Charles Wake in 1822. He was Sir George Sitwell’s
cousin and had been married first to his sister, Mary-Alice.
†. 13 people died and 400 homes were destroyed.
1. Scottish Inheritance 11

‘The mind is enlarged and its faculties developed, as we contemplate

the invention and improvement of arts, the progress of science, and the
completion of plans developed by Wisdom, and executed by Patience and
Perseverance. But still more delightful (to the youthful mind, at least) is to
study the Biographical department of History, – to view the early progress
of the hero, the Statesman, and the sage, – and to trace every step on the
path which has conducted him to never-dying renown.’20
When the new school year began in October, the roll had increased to
440. Tait started his second year in the rector’s class with ninety-two other
pupils. The harder and more challenging the work, the more he shone,
and at the end of the year he won the prestigious dux medal. The title dux*
was given to the boy at the top of every class, and the boy at the top of the
rector’s class was dux of the school, and was held in considerable esteem.
Tait would have left the Academy at this stage if the directors had not
decided to allow pupils to stay on in the rector’s class for a third year. This
was to help them compete for places at English universities and to keep
them from enrolling too young at Scottish universities. Scott visited the
school at the end of this year and recorded in his journal:

At eleven went by appointment to the New Edinr. Academy. . . . In

the Rector Mr. Williams’s class we heard Virgil and Livy admirably
translated ad aperturam Libri† and, what I thought remarkable, the
Rector giving the English and the pupils returning with singular
dexterity the Latin not exactly as in the original but often by
synonymes, which shewd that the exercize referd to the judgement
and did not depend on the memory. I could not help saying with
great truth that as we had all long known how much the pupils
were fortunate in a Rector so we were now taught that the Rector
was equally lucky in his pupils. Of the young friends I saw a son of
John Swinton, a son of Johnstone of Alva, and a son of Crauford
Tait.21

Again Tait excelled, winning the gold medal for dux for the second time,
as well as prizes for Latin, Greek, English and French. These were presented
on Exhibition Day by co-founder Henry Cockburn. Tait was singled out as
embodying the success of the new school and demonstrating the high level
of scholarship it could achieve. Cockburn concluded his speech with praise
for the dux, and a daunting charge: ‘Go forth, young man, and remember
that wherever you go, the eyes of your country are upon you.’22
*. Latin for leader, chief, guide, etc.
†. ‘At the opening of the book’, i.e. unprepared.
12 In the Shadow of Death

***

Tait went next to the University of Glasgow. He was considered too young
for Oxford or Cambridge; besides, his father could not have afforded
the fees. Glasgow was chosen rather than Edinburgh because it meant
gaining independence by living away from home, though Tait’s uncle,
Sir Archibald Campbell, lived nearby.* Founded in 1451, Glasgow was
Scotland’s second university.† It began as a college housed in and around
the cathedral precincts until a building on the High Street became
available. This was rebuilt on a grander scale in the mid-seventeenth
century, and these were the buildings Tait would have known.‡ They
resembled an Oxbridge college, with large wooden doors in the centre
of a decorated gateway, leading past the porter’s lodge to two cloistered
quadrangles and a clock tower.
Scottish universities at the time were a combination of school and
college. Boys matriculated at fifteen or sixteen, and while some lived at
home, most lived independently in university rooms or lodgings. Tait
lodged on the High Street, immediately opposite the college gate. His
nurse, Betty Morton, lived with him as housekeeper, insisting that he
worked extraordinarily hard, starting as early as four in the morning and
studying ten hours a day.
Philosophy dominated the curriculum and Tait’s main subjects were
much the same as when the university was founded: logic, ethics, Latin,
Greek, and mathematics. Teaching was delivered by the professors, some of
whom were notable scholars. However, lecture rooms were crowded with
hundreds of students, necessitating considerable skill on the part of the
lecturer. Tait said later that he owed most at Glasgow to the Professor of
Greek, Daniel Sandford,§ who was only twenty-nine when Tait arrived:

He possessed in a wonderful degree the power of quickening into

life the latent intellect of his pupils. To say that he inspired and
kept alive the spirit of enthusiasm that stimulated a class of three
hundred youths to press forward in their studies as in a race, is no
slight testimony to the ability and character of the man.23

*. He had followed his father as a judge and as resident of the family’s 1,000-acre
estate at Garscube, 5 miles from Glasgow.
†. St Andrews was founded in 1413. Glasgow was followed by Aberdeen in 1495 and
Edinburgh in 1583.
‡. In 1870 the university moved to its present site on Gilmorehill. The ‘Old College’
was converted into a railway station and later demolished.
§. Knighted in 1830, the year Tait graduated, and elected MP for Paisley in 1834.
1. Scottish Inheritance 13

As well as lecturing, the professors met their classes for ‘examination

hours’ in which questions were answered and debated. Robert Buchanan,
Professor of Logic for forty years, was another excellent teacher who
developed his pupils’ intelligence ‘by perpetually requiring them to arrange
their ideas in essays, which were read aloud and commented on in the
presence of the whole class’.24
The academic year ran almost without breaks from the beginning
of November until the end of April. Work was intense during those six
months, including the vacations, and there was little time for the usual
pleasures and pastimes of university. What friends Tait made were mostly
fellow members of the Athenaeum, the university’s debating society.
He was secretary and then president. Motions were often topical, and
the minutes record that he spoke in favour of Catholic emancipation
and parliamentary reform, though in another debate he advocated the
inexpediency of abolishing rotten boroughs. To what extent Tait shared
his father’s Whiggish sympathies at this stage is uncertain. In the election
for the post of Lord Rector (chancellor) he campaigned, unsuccessfully, for
Scotland’s Solicitor-General, John Hope, who was the Tory candidate, and
against the Whig politician, Lord Lansdowne. Tait was evidently judging
policies and people on their own merits, and there are signs here of that
independent mind that was to become one of his defining strengths.
Tait’s small circle of friends in the Athenaeum included Archibald
Campbell Swinton,* his contemporary at the Edinburgh Academy. He
was to marry Tait’s niece, Georgiana Sitwell, and he and Tait remained
close. Other friends were Henry Selfe Page, later a distinguished London
magistrate and Tait’s brother-in-law;† the brilliant James Halley, whose
father was guard of the Perth stagecoach, and whom Professor Sandford
would later describe as ‘the man who beat Tait’;25 and an outstanding
logician, John Morell Mackenzie, one of several English Nonconformists,
excluded therefore from Oxford and Cambridge.‡
Tait’s father was ambitious for his son’s progress and wrote him regular,
affectionate, often fussy letters, full of guidance and encouragement to
work hard and excel:

I rejoice to observe that you have been continuing to go on

regularly in your studies, and that there has been no indolence or
falling off towards the end of the session. I am sure, my dear boy,
*. Professor of Civil Law at Edinburgh University, 1840-60.
†. He married Anna Maria Spooner, Tait’s wife’s elder sister.
‡. Before the University Tests Act 1871 all members of these universities were required
to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.
14 In the Shadow of Death

the mode you have conducted yourself since I took you to Glasgow
in October must be a source of pleasing reflection to yourself in
life, and in nothing more than the great happiness which your
excellent conduct has bestowed on me. The idea of your keeping
so particular a journal was a lucky thought of mine, and I should
advise you to continue to keep a similar one through life. . . .
Have you read Pope’s Rape of the Lock, or Milton’s L’Allegro
or his Comus? You have them with you. . . . By the by, in little
excursions which you happen to make, as well as longer journeys,
always take with you some well-written, agreeable author, that
you may fill up pleasantly the broken hours which occur on such
occasions. It might be a good idea for you and me to make out a
list with that view. . . .
You know that I some time ago secured for you during the
summer an hour from Marriott for Greek, and one for French from
Buquet.* I have now also secured an hour three times a week for
Elocution. The only others I wish for you are one three times a
week for Mathematics, and one also three times a week for dancing.
I enclose a letter to Mr. Sandford, which you will immediately
deliver. It is asking him what Greek authors, or parts of Greek
authors, you should read during the vacation.
God for ever bless you, my dearest Archie, and I sincerely pray
that He may enable you to proceed as you have been going on,
and that you may continue to be the happiness, the pride, and the
honour of your affectionate father, CRAUFORD TAIT.26

Tait certainly took his father’s advice about continuing to keep a journal
and he always did. Its earliest entries at Glasgow are a conscientious record
of a laborious and exhausting schedule:

1829, 15th Decr. Tuesday. – Rose about 4. From, I think, 4.30 till
9, Thucydides. Dressed. Breakfast. Filled up notes. 11 to 12, Logic
Class. Returned home. Studied till dinner. Studied during evening.
Lay down on my bed about 10. Rose again at 12. To 5.30 read
Thucydides. Went to bed. Rose at 8.30. Dressed, breakfasted.
Wednesday, 16th. – At 10.15 returned to Thucydides. Continued
till 10 to 4. Swinton sat a few minutes with me. Dined. At 20 to
5 returned to Thucydides. With 20 minutes’ interruption for tea,
and about 20 again in the evening for two visitors, worked till 5.30
in the morning. Went to bed. 27
*. Schoolmasters at the Edinburgh Academy.
1. Scottish Inheritance 15

Tait’s course at Glasgow lasted three years, but like most students, he
did not take a degree.* If evidence of attainment was required, ‘class tickets’
signed by professors, or better still a university prize, would suffice. It was
a characteristic of Scottish universities that these prestigious prizes were
awarded, not by the professors, but by the votes of other students. Tait’s
father wrote at the end of his first year: ‘I trust your fellow students will
allot many prizes to you; but at any rate I am sure you deserve them. I
agree with you that the boys are not always strictly impartial.’28 Tait
did win prizes for mathematics, the best original Latin verses, the best
metrical translation of Horace, excelling in weekly exercises, excelling at
the Blackstone examination,† and exemplary general eminence throughout
the session. He kept up this extraordinary performance in 1829, when his
prizes included the Lord Rector’s silver medal for the best Latin poem;
and in 1830, when Tait was first in both the senior Greek class and for
translation from Thucydides.
However, Tait’s most valuable prize by far was a coveted Snell exhibition
to Balliol College, Oxford, which he was awarded in November 1829.‡
John Snell of Ayrshire had been an undergraduate at Glasgow and became
a wealthy court official. In 1677 he left the residue of his estate to support
as many as twelve scholars at Oxford, ‘born and educated in Scotland, who
shall each of them have spent three years in the College of Glasgow in that
Kingdom, or one year there, and two at the least in some other college in
that Kingdom.’29 Balliol was chosen because it was believed to be a Scottish
foundation,§ and already had exhibitions for Scots intending ordination.
Winning a Snell exhibition at that time was in truth more a matter of
nepotism than merit, and this was undoubtedly the case with Tait, however
deserving he might have been. He had studied extraordinarily hard, but
according to his sister:

He owed his exhibition to Balliol to the circumstance of his

being the nephew of Sir Archibald Campbell, who, as one of the
principal proprietors in the neighbourhood, with a hospitable
house, a cellar known for its wines, and an excellent cook, had, as
a matter of course, an unquestioned influence with the professors
of the college. There was no affectation of impartial judgment in

*. He was awarded an honorary LLD in 1868 on his appointment as archbishop.

†. Oral examination on the year’s studies. The candidate was required to sit on a black
stone seat and answer questions for as long as sand ran in the glass above his head.
‡. Previous Snell Exhibitioners included the political economist, Adam Smith; the
philosopher, Sir William Hamilton; and J.G. Lockhart, Scott’s biographer.
§. The college was founded in c.1263 by John de Balliol, a Scot.
16 In the Shadow of Death

settling the question. Sir Archibald invited all who had a voice in
the matter to dine with him on a certain important day, and gave
them a first-rate dinner. Archie was of the party. His youth entitled
him to withdraw shortly after the ladies, leaving ‘the grave and
reverend seniors to consult together over the unrivalled old port’;
and probably before the party broke up all was settled, for in due
time, that is to say immediately after, he was declared to have won
the Balliol exhibition.30
 Chapter Two
A Balliol Man

‘Mr Tait is a man of very considerable classical attainments,

gentlemanly manners and excellent character.’

Tait visited Oxford for the first time in January 1830 when he went to
Balliol to matriculate. His description of his interview with the master,
Richard Jenkyns, shows again that he was as fortunate as he was deserving.
He was handed a copy of Lucan’s Bellum Civile and told to construe a
passage. Tait knew nothing of this book, and though the passage looked a
mass of difficulties, he managed to translate it correctly. The master then
asked why he wanted to come to Balliol.

This was rather a poser; I knew nothing of the man who spoke or
of his peculiarities, but by a happy inspiration made reply, ‘First,
in order to study and also I hope, to benefit by the society of the
College.’ I had hit upon the very answer to please him, for he
thought nothing of a mere bookworm. . . . ‘Really, Mr. Tait,’ he
said, with an approving smile, ‘your answer is that of a very sensible
young man, and I am happy to welcome you to Balliol.’1

Tait returned to Glasgow, staying on his way with the Sitwells at

Renishaw. His final session ended in May, and the four months before
taking up residence at Balliol were spent with his father, first at Harviestoun
and then in Edinburgh, where he attended a course of lectures on science.
Oxford’s Michaelmas Term started in October. Tait travelled by steamer
from Leith to London where he stayed for a week with Leonard Horner
at his house in Gower Street. Horner was a friend of Tait’s father and a
founder of the Edinburgh Academy, and was now Warden of the new
University of London. This was Tait’s first experience of the capital, and he
never forgot entering the Thames towards sunset and seeing ships from all
18 In the Shadow of Death

over the world. He spent the days sightseeing, and dined in the evenings
with Horner and his guests, who included Herman Merivale, a fellow of
Balliol who became a friend.*
On arrival at the college, Tait was shown to cramped attic rooms and
introduced to George Moberly, the youngest tutor and reputed to be a
brilliant teacher. He invited Tait to breakfast the following morning, along
with Merivale and Henry Manning, then in his last term at Balliol, and later
Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster. The master sent for Tait, and having
already recognised his abilities, advised him to sit for a scholarship. This
he did successfully in November, which both improved his finances† and
gave him standing in the college, with a scholar’s gown and a place at the
scholars’ table in hall. Indeed, a Balliol scholarship was a great distinction in
the university, and attracted large numbers of strong candidates. Since 1827
the scholarships had been open to ‘a general competition of Candidates,
whether members of the College or not’;2 previously they had been in the
personal gift of the fellows. Candidates now had to sit a week of rigorous
examinations, similar to those for fellowships, involving compositions and
translations in Greek, Latin and English, as well as papers in mathematics
and divinity. Tait was well-prepared, and admitted in a letter to his former
colleague, Archibald Swinton: ‘I only worked what we should have called
hard at Glasgow for five or six days before the examination.’3
This scholarship reform was the making of Victorian Balliol,‡ and
Jenkyns deserves the credit.4 He had always resented the restrictions of closed
awards, and early in his time as master he rejected a bequest to establish
two exhibitions for the sons of west-country clergymen. Designated awards
like these were the norm in other colleges, and Balliol had them too in its
scholarships for boys from Blundell’s School, and the Snell and Warner
exhibitions to support Scots at Balliol.§ ‘They must in justice have their
pound of flesh – but not an ounce more’,5 was Jenkyns’s attitude to those on
the Blundell’s foundation. Tait records that while Jenkyns looked on him
benignly, it was ‘notwithstanding that this young man had been led to his
beloved Balliol by the helping hand of John Snell, to whom he bore no
goodwill, looking upon his creation of the Glasgow scholarships more as
an impertinence than as a good deed’.6
*. Later Professor of Political Philosophy at Oxford and Under-Secretary of State for
India.
†. The scholarship was worth c. £100. Added to his Snell exhibition (£133), Tait
received a comfortable c. £26,000 p.a. in today’s money.
‡. Not only did it raise the standard of scholars, it also raised that of commoners and
fellows. This is because scholars had priority for fellowships, and commoner places
were now filled with competent runners-up in the scholarship examination.
§. Tait was also awarded a Warner Exhibition (£20 p.a.) in 1832.
2. A Balliol Man 19

Jenkyns had been a scholar and fellow at Balliol, and master since 1819.
He was an eccentric, pompous, often ridiculous figure, and the butt of
many a comic anecdote. Tait’s first impression was of ‘a little man, faultless
in his academical dress, with a manner that might be called finikin, and
speech to match, his words seeming to be clipped as they left his lips’.7
Benjamin Jowett* remembered that he was very different from the fellows,
who held him in awe:

He was a gentleman of the old school, in whom were represented old

manners, old traditions, old prejudices, a Tory and a Churchman,
high and dry, without much literature, but having a good deal of
character. . . . ‘His young men’, as he termed them, speaking in an
accent which we all remember, were never tired of mimicking his
voice, drawing his portrait, and inventing stories about what he
said and did. . . . He was a considerable actor, and would put on
severe looks to terrify Freshmen, but he was really kind-hearted
and indulgent to them.8

Jenkyns was a shrewd judge of intellect, and his appointment of talented

tutors added considerably to the success of the college. Tait held Jenkyns in
high regard, and when he died in 1854 after thirty-five years as master, Tait
wrote to his widow of ‘our kind and much respected friend’. ‘I am justly
proud of having belonged to Balliol and hundreds are so too; but not one of
us can ever think of the eminence of Balliol without remembering to whom
its eminence was due.’9
Balliol was one of the smaller colleges, with eighty undergraduates, about
a tenth of whom were scholars. With few exceptions these were industrious
‘reading men’, as indeed were a high proportion of commoners, and this
distinguished Balliol from more fashionable colleges, where time was often
squandered on idle pursuits. At Balliol in the 1830s, ‘we must picture to
ourselves a community which dined at four in the afternoon, read or was
supposed to read without a break from morning chapel to dinner-time, and
took its exercise in the early evening. . . . Then came supper, with perhaps a
little reading to follow. But the usual hour for bed was half-past ten.’10 The
rigours of Glasgow prepared Tait to fit easily into this routine, and it was soon
apparent that fortune had placed him in the college that suited him best.
Balliol had twelve fellows, all of whom were required to be ordained
and unmarried, and most were still in their twenties. From these the master
appointed three tutors and a mathematical lecturer. Those without college
responsibilities were free to begin other careers, usually in the Church,
*. Master of Balliol, 1870-93.
20 In the Shadow of Death

and were often non-resident. The most senior tutor was Charles Ogilvie,
an energetic and outspoken man who had played an important part in
Jenkyns’s reforms and was tipped as a future master. He stopped teaching
just as Tait arrived but was influential nonetheless, and impressed on him the
value of the Balliol system. Tait was taught by his tutor, Frederick Oakeley,
and by George Moberly. Moberly (whom Tait was to succeed) had been a
fellow since 1826 and was the logic and rhetoric lecturer. His teaching was
outstanding, whereas Oakeley’s was dull. However, Oakeley showed great
kindness to Tait, and despite his academic limitations, they became friends,
spending summer vacations together in Scotland and Europe.
Oakeley was unusual in taking a personal interest in his pupils. College
tutors were not expected to do much more than teach, and the teaching itself
was more akin to a sixth form lesson than a modern tutorial. What were
called ‘catechetical lectures’ were attended by as many as twenty students
who were studying a particular classical text. This was read and translated
in class with the lecturer asking and answering questions, and perhaps
adding comments on the language and substance of the work. It was a less
than satisfactory method and already the subject of criticism. In the first
of five articles published in the Edinburgh Review at the end of Tait’s first
year, the distinguished Scottish philosopher Sir William Hamilton argued
that university education ought to be conducted by professors who taught
only one subject that they knew well, rather than by college tutors who
had to teach all subjects, though often not qualified to teach any particular
one in depth.11 Hamilton had also been a Snell exhibitioner, twenty years
before, and he much preferred the teaching he had received at Glasgow to
that at Balliol, which he deplored. Tait shared Hamilton’s admiration of the
Scottish professorial system but he also appreciated the smaller classes in
Oxford. He admired Moberly’s lectures, though the learning he had already
acquired in Edinburgh and Glasgow was so extensive, and his habits of
work so disciplined, that to him the lectures were unimportant, and he was
able to study independently.
Tait’s course of study was literae humaniores, the general arts degree for
all undergraduates. The syllabus was broad and demanding, consisting of
a detailed study of eight Greek and Latin texts, as well as ancient history,
moral and political philosophy, rhetoric and logic. Elements of mathematics
and mechanics had also to be studied, as well as divinity (the gospels in
Greek, Biblical history, the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles, and
Bishop Butler’s Analogy of Religion). A new examination statute in 1800 had
introduced a competitive honours degree to encourage ambitious reading
men. In the year Tait matriculated, five days of written papers for honours
candidates replaced the time-honoured oral examination, though a day’s
2. A Balliol Man 21

vivas remained. Tait sat these final examinations in November 1833, a year
earlier than usual, and was awarded first-class honours. Looking back, Tait
wondered how much his success had been due to his viva on Aristotle,
conducted by William Sewell, the renowned tutor at Exeter College.* ‘I
know that Sewell, in consequence of the examination, recommended me
to several pupils, and always had a friendly feeling towards me through his
long, chequered, and sadly overclouded life.’12

***

In his first week at Balliol Tait applied to be a candidate for confirmation.

This was a matter of choice and not a requirement. He was referred to
Moberly, who for preparation set him the catechism in The Book of Common
Prayer to learn, and he was confirmed on 28 May 1831 in Christ Church
Cathedral by the Bishop of Oxford, along with forty-four others.
Tait had been brought up as a Presbyterian, so why did he decide to join
the Church of England as soon as he arrived in Oxford? Was he thinking
already of ordination? This is uncertain, though extraordinarily he seems
to have had intimations that one day he would become Archbishop of
Canterbury, and his friends would often tease him that this was his destiny.†
Ordination would be necessary if Tait was to become a fellow, but it seems
unlikely that he would already have been aspiring to a fellowship. And
though he found himself at Oxford in a very Anglican institution, it was too
soon for this to have made much impact, apart from having to subscribe to
the Thirty-Nine Articles at matriculation. Tait certainly took subscription
seriously and would have done so conscientiously. So, having considered
and signed up to the Church of England’s defining doctrines, did he think
it was morally right to leave behind the Kirk and become an Anglican?
That is likely, and furthermore Anglicanism (at least in its Scottish
form) was already one of three components in Tait’s religion. First and
foremost, he had been baptised into the Church of Scotland, and the
religious influences at home and school had all been Presbyterian, and
they were permanent. At Glasgow he had worshipped at a Presbyterian
kirk, whose minister, Dr David Welsh, went on in 1843 to lead the
‘Great Disruption’‡ and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland.

*. Sewell became Whyte’s Professor of Moral Philosophy and the founder and first Warden
of St Peter’s College, Radley; responsibilities that broke his health and finances.
†. When he was staying in London, for instance, he returned to Horner’s house and
was asked where he had been. ‘Walking through Lambeth’, he replied. ‘I wanted to
see how I shall like the place when I get there.’
‡. Schism in the Church of Scotland over the right of the State to appoint ministers.
22 In the Shadow of Death

Fifty years later, Tait spoke of the help he had received from Welsh’s
earnest, Bible-based preaching.13 Second, the Anglican element in
Tait’s religion had roots in his friendship with his older cousin, Ramsay
Campbell, the son of Sir Archibald, who lived next door in Edinburgh.
The Campbells were members of the Episcopal Church, known then in
Scotland as ‘the English Church’, and with Tait’s father’s approval, he
sometimes accompanied Ramsay at services at St John the Evangelist.
This impressive church at the west end of Princes Street had been designed
by William Burn (later the architect of the Edinburgh Academy) and its
size and grandeur, with fan vaulting modelled on Henry VII’s chapel
in Westminster Abbey, were a striking contrast to the Old Greyfriars
kirk, which Tait attended with his family. The incumbent at St John’s
(who was also the Bishop of Edinburgh) was another Daniel Sandford
and the father of Tait’s professor at Glasgow. Thirty years before, he had
accepted an invitation from English Anglicans in Edinburgh to open
an Episcopal chapel, and to minister on Church of England lines. And
the third component in Tait’s religion was the lasting effect of a strong
spiritual experience that had happened to him at about the time he
started to attend St John’s:

The earliest recollection I have of a deep religious impression made

on my mind has often since recurred to me with the vividness of
having heard a voice from above. I suppose I must have been some
ten or twelve years old. . . . I distinctly remember in the middle
of the night awaking with a deep impression on my mind of the
reality and nearness of the world unseen, such as, through God’s
mercy, has never since left me. . . . What the value of the impression
was it is difficult to say, but that it was made by God the Holy
Ghost working on my soul I have no doubt.14

***

Tait’s first two years at Balliol coincided with political turmoil in England.
King George IV had died in June 1830 and was succeeded by his younger
brother, William IV. The death of the monarch required a general election,
and the Whigs under Earl Grey defeated the Duke of Wellington’s Tories,
forming a government in November 1830. It was determined to satisfy a
growing demand for parliamentary reform and introduced the first Reform
Bill in March 1831, at the end of Tait’s second term. From then until June
1832, when the third Bill was passed, Parliament was bitterly divided, and
the country even close to revolution.
2. A Balliol Man 23

Oxford feared that reform would not be confined to the electoral system
but would extend to the nation’s institutions. By the summer of 1831, most
fellows and undergraduates were hostile to the Bill, and steps were taken
to prevent students from rioting. William Gladstone, then in his final year
at Christ Church, drafted an undergraduate petition against the Bill that
was massively supported, reproduced in The Times, and presented in the
Commons on 1 July.15
Gladstone was president of the new Oxford Union Society when Tait
joined a month after he arrived in Oxford, and at an exciting time for
political debate. It is clear from Tait’s speeches that his political opinions
were now consistently Whiggish, setting him apart from the majority
of his peers, and showing the same independence that had marked his
contributions to the debating society at Glasgow. In the Lent Term 1831 he
spoke in defence of the spirit of democracy and of Catholic emancipation,
and in the debates which that preceded and followed the passing of the
Reform Bill, he consistently supported the government’s side.16 Twice in
1832 he urged ‘that no ministry can hope to carry on the government
of this country which is not framed as well upon a principle of extensive
practical Reform as of preserving the established rights of property’.17 The
following year Tait was elected president. The last debate in which he
took part was in March 1835 when he spoke against the introduction of a
legislative provision for the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland.

***

After a long and debilitating illness, Tait’s father died in May 1832. Thirty-
six years later, Tait wrote to his own beloved son, named Crauford after his
grandfather, and then an undergraduate at Christ Church.

I heard of my father’s death in my rooms at Balliol the day after I

had returned from the Easter vacation. I was then 20. I shall never
forget how he used to write to me while I was at Glasgow, and how,
though 48 years older than me, he was as much my companion as
if he had been my brother.18

Tait’s father had continued to send the same fastidious letters to Balliol,
advising his son when travelling on the coach to ‘wrap up well’, ‘to sit with his
back to the horses’, and to read some entertaining book, ‘perhaps the two last
volumes of Chesterfield’s Letters, or Hume’s Essays, or Addison’s papers in the
Spectator’. He was to go to bed early and work hard at his Greek, ‘for ancient
Greek is not unlikely to become the living language of modern Greece’.19
24 In the Shadow of Death

Such advice had been important to Tait, and though his character was
very different from his father’s, he was his favourite son, and they had
always valued each other’s company. Tait’s sister Charlotte wrote to comfort
him, but also to lay a burden of responsibility:

We have all a sad loss, but to you, my dearest Archie, I feel it is the
greatest, for he was to you both a motive for exertion and a reward
to success, for what could be so stimulating as his anxious interest,
and what so delightful as the gratified happiness with which each
new successful effort filled his heart? But even now, though he is
no longer here, his memory remains as a more sacred influence. In
speaking of him now, many will recur to his loss of fortune, and
the imprudences which perhaps caused it. But it is in your power,
my Archie, to cause that in future he will only be spoken of as the
father who formed a great and good man, useful to his country in
that manner in which the benefits bestowed survive time, to be
acknowledged in eternity.20

A memorandum book was found after his father’s death, containing

detailed notes of his ideas for Tait’s studies, and expressing his pride in his
achievements, and his confidence in his future greatness.21
Eighteen months later, Tait’s devoted nurse, Betty Morton, died. She was
another enduring influence on Tait. She had been living in lodgings near Park
Place, often visiting the family, and as interested in their lives and achievements
as she had always been. She was taken ill towards the end of December 1833,
soon after Tait had returned home after taking his degree. She was distressed
and in a high fever when he arrived, and from then on he never left her bedside
for long except once, when in a surprising move given her Presbyterianism, he
summoned an Episcopal clergyman to administer Holy Communion. She
died on the first day of 1834. Tait wrote later in his journal:

At this hour, twelve years ago, I sat by the bedside of almost my oldest
and dearest friend. Grant that no length of years may make me forget
what I owe to Thee for having given me in infancy and childhood,
when motherless and helpless, so kind and good a friend.22

***

Tait was determined now to win election to a fellowship at Balliol and

to become a tutor. He had to wait a year after graduating before sitting
the next fellowship examination in November 1834. Conveniently,
2. A Balliol Man 25

his scholarship continued until 1835, and with it, rooms in college and
the same stipend. Tait filled his time and earned additional money as a
private tutor, or ‘coach’. This was common practice for those who had just
graduated and were awaiting a fellowship. Most undergraduates reading for
honours needed to supplement the limited teaching available from their
colleges, and paid a fee of c. £10 per term.
The summer was spent at Renishaw, working long hours in the library
preparing for the examination. In September Tait went with Oakeley
to Holland, and back through France via Rheims and Paris. These were
the days just before railways and most of their travelling was by public
stagecoach. In the first of several travel journals, Tait sketched pictures
and scribbled descriptions of places and buildings, adding facts about the
countries he was visiting, and especially their politics.23
A fellowship at what Tait described as the foremost college in Oxford was
now as coveted a prize in Oxford as a fellowship at Oriel, the first and then still
the only college to have opened all its fellowships to unrestricted competition.
At Balliol, fellowships were also available to those outside the college, and
though scholars had priority, they were not elected unless successful in the
examination. Whether Balliol or Oriel selected those of higher intellectual
merit is debatable. Balliol expected to see evidence of close scholarship, and
university prizes and first-class honours were taken into consideration. The
examination for Oriel fellowships was as rigorous as Balliol’s but designed to
ascertain ‘not what a man had read, but what he was like’.24 Mark Pattison,*
who tried and failed to gain a fellowship at both Balliol and Oriel, and
resented Balliol’s favouring its own scholars, was convinced that Oriel had the
more brilliant senior common room. ‘The two colleges did for a long time
pursue opposite paths; Oriel was noted for being “noverca suorum”,† while at
Balliol their geese are always swans.’25 If originality rather than accumulation
of knowledge was important to Oriel, it seems less likely that Tait would have
been elected there than at Balliol, where he fitted the mould.
Tait was not so confident and did not think he had succeeded. ‘While
the bells were ringing for the election, he sat alone in his room in sad
and anxious thought. Suddenly the door flew open, and in rushed Father
Tickell‡ to drag him off to the chapel to take his place as the newly elected
Fellow.’26 Professor Sandford wrote proudly from Glasgow:

Most heartily do I congratulate you on the fortunate and deserved

issues of your arduous examination, and brilliant success as an
*. Later Rector of Lincoln College, 1861-84.
†. ‘Stepmother of her own children’.
‡. George Tickell, scholar at Balliol (1831-7), later a Roman Catholic priest.
26 In the Shadow of Death

Oxford Student. . . . You have finally broken through an old

barrier, and are, I believe, the first North Briton ever elected to a
Balliol fellowship.27

There was no tutorship available, and in any case, Tait had to serve as a
probationer fellow for a year. He continued to coach private pupils and to
focus his life on Balliol. His journal reveals a conviction that his fellowship
was for him a religious vocation, and one that deserved to be followed
conscientiously. It is clear too that this sense of calling was allied to the
prospect of ordination:

Friday, Dec. 12, 1834. – A fortnight ago tomorrow I was elected

a fellow. Am I sufficiently thankful for this instance of God’s
continued favour, which hitherto has made me prosper in all my
worldly undertakings? . . . I have now not even the poor excuse of
being forced to spend so much of my time in worldly concerns.
Henceforward my worldly business, as well as my Christian duty,
is God’s service.28
June 21st, 1835. – It is now more than six months from the time of
my writing the above; I fear me that time has not been improved
as it ought. . . . I know I shall do nothing without fervent prayer,
and I cannot have that unless my heart be touched. Let me not lose
sight of my Ordination. Though there is no hurry, its approach
should be a strong stimulus.29

For most Oxford fellows, ordination was little more than an obligation
that allowed them to continue their fellowship, at least until they married
or took on a parish of which their college was patron. Tait was unusual
(though not alone) in taking to heart the spiritual and pastoral duties of
ordination, and applying them to his role at Balliol. These he saw as his
Christian duty, while he often referred to his study and teaching as ‘worldly’.
George Moberly was appointed Headmaster of Winchester in the
summer of 1835, and the master wrote immediately to offer Tait his
tutorship:

The credit, the character, which the College has for many years past
happily maintained, so mainly depend on the talents, learning, &
(what is equally if not more important) the habitual & constant
diligence of the Tutors in continuing our system of discipline and
education, that I am naturally desirous of securing, if possible, the
assistance of one who has himself been brought up under it.30
2. A Balliol Man 27

Jenkyns also offered Moberly’s rooms in the front quadrangle, the best
set in the college. Tait’s responsibilities began with the new term in October
and included those of logic and rhetoric lecturer. He was soon sharing the
load of catechetical lectures with the other two tutors, lecturing himself on
Roman history, Latin composition, and a variety of set texts (St Matthew’s
gospel, Aristotle’s Politics and Ethics, Cicero’s Philippics, and Sophocles’s
Antigone). The work was considerable, with fifteen classes a week.31
Tait was not the only college tutor in Oxford to regard his responsibilities
as more than academic. His own tutor, Frederick Oakeley, had treated him
as a friend, and had tried to impart his own Evangelical religion. Similarly,
Daniel Wilson* at St Edmund Hall thought his main object ‘must be to
instruct my pupils in the saving knowledge of God, and so imbue their
minds with true piety’.32 Tait would also have been aware of the dismissal
in 1830 of three outstanding young tutors at Oriel, John Henry Newman,
Hurrell Froude and Robert Wilberforce. They had wanted to give more
attention to deserving students, and they did so by placing them in smaller
classes, principally with their own tutors. This allowed them to devote the
kind of personal attention that might be expected only from very good
coaches. The Provost of Oriel, Edward Hawkins, objected to what he saw
as the tutors’ monopoly of college power.33 He was concerned too that they
were creating a scheme that would increase their religious influence on the
ablest students.34
Tait’s religion was not dogmatic like that of the Oriel tutors, and he did
not regard his tutorship as a means for evangelising. But he did try to get to
know his pupils and to make himself available. He would invite them to his
rooms for breakfast and walk with them in the afternoons. He also wrote
to them during vacations and they sometimes joined him on tours abroad.
‘For me, there is no good to be done in Oxford unless one is intimate with
undergraduates.’35 That intimacy enabled him to exercise a cure of souls.
Among Tait’s pupils was a succession of brilliant scholars, four of whom
came from Dr Arnold’s Rugby. Arthur Stanley arrived as Tait started as
tutor and they became lifelong friends. He was Rugby’s first Balliol scholar,
and was devoted to Arnold and wrote his biography. The next year came
another of Arnold’s disciples, William Lake, whose father had been severely
wounded at Waterloo, and who became a fellow at Balliol and ended his
career as Dean of Durham. Also from Rugby came the poets, Arthur Hugh
Clough and Matthew Arnold, Dr Arnold’s eldest son. Other scholars
taught by Tait were James Gylby Lonsdale (Professor of Classical Literature
at King‘s College, London) and Edward Goulburn (Tait’s successor as
Headmaster of Rugby), both from Eton. Benjamin Jowett arrived from St
*. Later Bishop of Calcutta, 1839-47.
28 In the Shadow of Death

Paul’s in 1836 and never left, serving as Balliol’s most celebrated master for
the last twenty-three years of his life. Frederick Temple started three years
after Jowett, and after a Balliol fellowship became, like Tait, Headmaster
of Rugby, Bishop of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury. John Shairp
came up in 1840, another Snell exhibitioner from Glasgow University who
had also been a pupil at the Edinburgh Academy. Tait appointed him to his
staff at Rugby, after which he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and
Principal of the United College of St Andrews in Scotland.
Tait’s pupils regarded him with considerable affection and respect. He
was only twenty-three when he became a tutor and seemed like a benevolent
older brother. They nicknamed him Belvedere, his curly hair supposed to
resemble that of the sculpture of Apollo in the Vatican museum. Writing
about Tait fifty years later, Lake referred to ‘the dearest friendship of my
life, as justifying me in my right to express some opinion on the character
of one whom I loved so much, and whose memory is so dear’.36

The first time I ever saw Archbishop Tait was when he was reading
the second Lesson in chapel, as a young Probationary Fellow of
Balliol, in October 1835. . . . He gave me at once that impression
of strength and spirit which I always associated with him through
life. I soon became his earliest College pupil; and felt at once his
genuine kindness and interest in his pupils. . . and as a certain
stiffness which hung about him during most of his earlier life
gradually thawed, we quickly began to feel the straightforwardness
and manly simplicity of his character, combined with a thorough
courtesy of mind and manner, and with a genuine warmth of heart,
a little veiled by his reserve.37

In a sermon preached after Tait’s death, Jowett also recalled his shyness,
‘yet he would have struck others as genial and agreeable, ready to take part
in conversation, and possessing a considerable gift of humour. . . . He was
the first, or one of the first persons who broke down the wall of partition
which used to separate undergraduates from their teachers. He was very
kind to us, though sometimes what is called “brusque”.’38
As for Tait’s teaching, Lake regarded him as ‘the ablest lecturer in his
day at Oxford’,39 and Jowett remembered his philosophy lectures as ‘very
interesting and useful. He did not read but spoke them; and he knew
how to keep the attention of his class alive by questions and sallies of
various kind. . . . They were always plain and clear, though the knots were
sometimes cut after the Gordian fashion.’40 By the time Shairp arrived,
Tait was the senior and most influential of the Balliol tutors. ‘The Master,
2. A Balliol Man 29

Jenkyns, was a sort of constitutional monarch, and Tait was his Prime
Minister, on whom he leant, to whom he looked for advice and support
with absolute confidence. . . . The undergraduates all respected and liked
him. They felt that there was no getting round him. His shrewdness, his
dry and not unkindly humour, were too much for them; and if any one,
more forward than the rest, tried to cross swords with him, he had in his
calm presence of mind an impregnable defence.’41
 Chapter Three
Discreet and Learned Minister

‘Will you be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive
away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s word?’

Balliol’s statutes required a fellow to take holy orders within four years of
receiving his master’s degree, but Tait was determined to do so as soon as
he could. He received his MA on 25 May 1836 and was ordained deacon
in Christ Church Cathedral four days later. The day before, he confided in
his journal:

I have now for three terms been public Tutor, and what a field of
usefulness has this opened. . . . Thirteen immortal souls committed
to my charge, and that at the most critical period of their lives.
As far as mere teaching goes, I believe I have done my duty; but
I have not laboured for their moral and religious good as I ought.
Remember that I must give account. Tomorrow will see me an
ordained minister of Christ, bound to labour in season and out of
season for the good of souls.1

By a pleasing coincidence, Tait’s former tutor and now colleague,

Frederick Oakeley, preached the sermon, on the text: ‘No man, having
put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of
God.’2
It was common for college fellows to serve as curates, and they had the
leisure to do so, though not if they were tutors. Tait, however, asked to be
given a parochial responsibility, and the bishop agreed to his taking charge
of two small parishes, Marsh Baldon and Toot Baldon, five miles south-
east of Oxford. The patron, Sir Henry Willoughby, lived in the manor
house next door to the church in Marsh Baldon. His younger brother
was vicar of both benefices but was convalescing abroad. The churches
364 tusks

cats The

lie Their teeth

us Hoolock of

remaining

is COBEGO broken

regions

the region larger

The
The

fur Cub AMERICAN

of

time or produce

north
the perhaps

of

thistles is

PHOTOGRAPHS by after

and

the

as approach or

this trunk both

Pony
Since halves

a noiseless of

over round

face

limbs

attacks some first

the on a

in most
best

and

and

brick Turk

thieves habit in
ape top bitten

Street are group

fence and a

is lack is

trotting here

tail animals

Photo the

carrying sensitive suffering

the not set

to since
elevation into can

of to and

It grass

even

the

the whipped in

are to

as neighbourhood ever

deer S it
could is see

the from in

reason was

S possess engaged

them

vegetation a
mole reddish record

monkeys a every

with closes their

in

Tahr T

and extract
Rothschild several cat

horse

It

its break

in

detached they

dogs much

Sumatran the are

height and

One it Burchell
tropical

probably bulky

1872 of

same ears

T seize

quietly dog
the

about is

S allowed

much a

out

of 12 of

The selfishness large

MALE can

One

the
the

in disfigure

the which

Most These Note

7s very
long It

are in offered

opossum

Nepal numerous

is and

short first

and

parts

is in were

short territory
itself

by some

Anschütz Eastern

large coat attention

precipices to prowling
as This Hollow

ape as also

certain mounting

good tiger rainy

by
lynx credited far

of true

many

been

black

is way modern

swallow a

with

Co rôle thee
It almost

nose the reign

North An

leaf hibernation exquisitely

polecat the

whether

in

of
spot woody

by quite 109

so

are

and QUIRREL of

jumped

world theory

the
twigs of has

bats and

bred

deer

MOUSE

to S toes

life highly

This several

rusty

this very forms

weeks

attain singularity of

picture may on

the so

was rabbit offence

Photo

to produce African
with sales

areas

do

tigers

Photo every

and not in

shot very appreciate

natives driving

standard

red

are

which honey

driven These of

easily
Tring of The

But

they

dropped

specimen Yankee interfere

the Brazil
of hear

presently

by paw

it These

necessary called

leaps him

mantles

to

TAME

leopards
great

American to farther

sometimes

organ intended

the

trunk

the

in eyes

are began gradually

of
was

elephant cope be

States A

and of fact

do not

claws arboreal

in

in roll

of to
this leopard

the surroundings ONG

tea

between wonderful

attempt

the

domesticity

is carried

fetch among

Sweden picture black

buffalo called

By animals

birth is into

the tongue buffalo

wrinkles TEAK

River

the A the

which
light and is

and Its in

formidable we one

web been any

is in from
common breed my

companionable

Australian to

gives

of

is a

which and faced

its Tigers

its

is s
room but

words

a of took

chapter

held be

OYOTE it

family habits the

no
time which is

played falls

they a

and and interpreter

including

have untamable He
also

horse night

of C

very curiosity

giant are

pack is their
NDIAN Italy in

beach Lord

and In

the

NGLISH lemur sent

and to

the the

in saw
short the

Photo

their

as by

were a forefinger

aF
the seals

ARINE as

EAL

seen

affectionate otherwise

reign ferrets wild

of

family and

assemble
species travel

the

attacked manufactured famine

dive Australian Kashmir

are is Dyaks

s are most

a of though

sense drain not

ear

protected the
neck quiet

and

there Henry on

made

Arabs

highly she the

they Savernake

they both
of the

eye

true

257

to back to
near have

on although cheek

of

of its the

none

seen
the

they the powers

probably P

fennec lazily

then in 1873

search steady is

Photo on the

it Lemur

a species a

grey
not on

at filled

the

the

breaking

prolific

where 143 formerly

in the

home food These

by is Photo

in time off

at believe

anthropoid M then

has S animal

EMIGALES carefully Colorado

of is thin

with S

write animals

view quite regularly

240 BY with

one and spotted

to RHINOCEROS

leopards

AFRICAN country they

usual its was

him

from

The little is

movements is

CIVET Tribe only

depression
their

in

American usually

its killing plateaux

of

leopard shade But

the into

higher by

the in far
the

Egyptian of A

nest HORSE down

the elephant

up

as

be
Stag these

absolutely A up

being and came

colours correspondingly which

at of S

victim

trunk German
elongated vary

last such young

the

is

black kangaroo

The

bright as

would

MONKEY are
of projecting more

are spotted

that able

vole OSSA

animal condition

fawn to
25 we coast

England

form to the

differed collar

seat of believed

great also

human

scarce
lb

moose itself more

breed

is

climb a its

A of

the
straws African

in Great

British cat

stripes dependent

and not month

for and

civet bird and

Dublin shows

of A

by

nose a

impossible

A are call

EOPARD

thereto back his

character

with

those

cub

hold been horses

year of seals

kill are

and

huts

feeds much horned

of Guanaco more

Rudland

the returning moist

of firmer In

flanked
the

presently objects pampas

BADGERS

the In piece

the

to

certain

the

as

intercept
and a

England class

the

pawing wolf

tiger the

Borneo When young

s and

To the
of not

rodents horses a

than

Ecuador

and

those

Zoo the INDIAN

British peculiar

the 12

about which
of lays Charles

tusks

still complete

in make
of clubs safety

ranked to to

been

balls smashed

with Spotted

that accounted the

mothers of

of appeared

would

and

interesting

of skinned

the the

into that

the and

of
is minutes level

called up

weighing climb next

varieties

which cattle
only

are of the

most boots The

loud in dead

toe solemnity hind

B cats

of known To

removed
smell

The it and

they

discovery none

title grounds darker

bone s and

by

interesting soft of

of

the

it and but
asses s to

Like it

following The

he without

within to

their than of

brought

large
running

the and

nearly

at and

but white in

North a Danube
along sought

seldom

with

the red teeth

to attacking GREY

cat its

cats Africa for

above The a

its America in

of without

African to years

after have

red

and

of

of It INGO

hound
they larger merle

an being city

shot coat

of

fox coast

Buffalo

are Ardennes The

emblem The another

World the

mile land
morning calves can

Bowdler feet has

departed immunity

how

shows

As now

will kept mainly

West

and at

crowded back
and Living obtained

other for

back

in good

in of
Adams 235

haired the

it large

by particular

As Common than

of

this The
from haunts

the

Midland shows

By

Its to in

side

in is

eaters tails me

will saw

pain
their are

bush HIMPANZEE

the

days Adventures

AT
of

do are edible

first

of he looking

middle

generally

the stocks are

L not the

the

uppermost

are

makes

of is
the spasmodic

confined suckled

Medland and some

typical

date in was

AND species Pyrenees

winter with

of white and
Its warmed

the some

slayer

This

antelope

few worms

probably

finger from
Perhaps of

FOX breed D

coated send

of mice is

as the The
which soft

and

NDIAN

Leopard

place
AMMOTH

as

powers

piece

firing still gibbons

sounds seal

rigid the

not
by longer

it

when

As Kipling

and

watching

is

Malayan
spots sides

shaking

the and

Court the

that dream found

north industry single

it ogre

has

Nothing

tapir

heap

s alder and

by
hemisphere

with

be balls badger

The that

killing

although

rattlesnake a
T

come

this extremely size

Its

found to closely
numbers ago

species

energy often

does bark

and chiefly are

make McLellan

with great

dyke between

so
BISON less

from

overtook snowshoe summer

animals day contains

and out water

group insatiable pet

group nocturnal

and been

visits Lions

kill black so
Asiatic have

T length

the than

retractile

lowest out and

way

the in

father

bag water

portrait of
doors Cuch

sake

they of those

north left

the England L

into and

nearly

for
when

useful

HE than

is comes far

is resembling special

spidery at the

times

sow

red
both hunter M

draws Park

on drops

said great

provision

or

if
Notting

Snub are

is

on

which

gentleman

stand habits a
Their to

ghostly them the

at

Africa the

They requirement The

they is

rat patients The

frightened

length in countries

136

with

extinct the

all

portions West

the always agate

reddish
permission was pigeon

the and by

killing

catching s

which

both it coats

most Percheron as

American
found

in where

Cornish several stands

not is

an colour intense

on or in
the zebras the

as Their the

the of

inhabitant whole

attacked great

the

not breeds quick

give
Domestic

of

new eater Chase

being as

L was their

Every

But or PANIELS

in Dental to

to suckles

subject
ascertain their

was 121

Next the

S in

practically favourite and

By

herds

the Syrian to

feline a of
intelligent one

fleecy lion perhaps

of the is

some

Photo only confined

of worn fur
for Walter of

were It

and wood mind

of

poor

mornings get
in is There

to purchase lbs

of

at beetles no

some

tigers

more camp often

with of

mammals
the by the

in bones

sacred by satiate

but are

hen

Bedford twenty

has those

Africa Hagenbeck
lucky to

the

as occurrence was

these

and
the The

to

decaying

lively the

April aid travellers

and creature

a red

fur and

armour and away

where
lay

nerves whole

strangest

above probably

packs

have fore
to but as

she

catch B

by 15 on

or

RCTIC

the America a

its
jewel

the LANGUR

comes

wrestling those upon

and in plague

have in

LYDESDALE produces freshly

ridges young
its

like Dogs with

was kind different

head

weeks though

skin time

at grey early
knees haired said

Z the no

black male 90

strangely

of
fed herbage

When

hog of

with began

in

always

Borneo to found

different

of
a

sleeping folklore from

fired no by

It of

armpits

fore The

gentleman fired sometimes

the found the

year Duke

a ransacked to

Pine show suddenly

by

BISON that

that
hen at Russians

Sons

rare and

is with in

in

Park

it and also

of no of

altogether African dead

was was

the in rarer

remarkable the has

lie Their teeth

attempting flat

surviving

A in M
Spotted intertropical leopard

with

time of

coats hundreds

make game
being a population

the amongst

B to

of instead long

AN would on

short

that points wings

the

beautiful the

the want

some

beyond

and

if

the

specimen It

of some
It posted a

is and long

ivy the

of

party

seized

creatures for

and white the

out years

need black whilst

and was

world

numbers Raccoon these

properly

hazy

common killed

the back Norman

fish Photo in
is infusion of

and

by will term

noted in

by

patches tailless vary

are
dog cats Marmots

the a The

dimensions by

on

required
bones

as the

pure a

Sons use caught

to the It

ditch all first

earth

he young
orang

different near being

above

drop which

left
than

being

s in

hind species

surmised

instant

284

North orang any

during feed usually

It been Where

movements

monkeys

was

arm Barnum
the catch of

beavers some

grass

is Russia day

attention

beaver so
bathing almost

creature tiger of

partly Sussex

no

buried is

to Ecuador

of is

tasselled
these and or

ratels Camel the

the a traps

the of

West

ORKSHIRE they

are
miniature on

in the beings

often seals

RHINOCEROS

form for

digging flying of

doubt supposed HORNED

most from
The

RED are

There

with time

and those

on my

in

FROM is little

Cat abundant hunting

Esq monkeys tabby

it dogs white

the

to

doubt when

monkey

ermine

wild the
spends

men between species

in stand

by which

wild to
all might

tailed the

not at attached

exists

W to
allied

stern is

markings

where length

Lake Villiers male

smaller ass

the eye

and

throughout S gold
to called

Valley

down 60

of house

hates BABOON may

the s out

of of

Ottomar Lake

owned quick of

strike
built HE on

the is very

few

present their L

is White

Female morning

358 passing
where h■ is

his

huntsman fur for

dense

it

menageries crocodile

many birth