Charles Vaughan (priest) - Misplaced Pages

(Redirected from C. J. Vaughan) English scholar and priest

Charles John Vaughan (16 August 1816 – 15 October 1897) was an English scholar and Anglican churchman.

Life

He was born in Leicester, the second son of the Revd Edward Thomas Vaughan, vicar of St Martin's, Leicester. He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was bracketed senior classic with Lord Lyttelton in 1838. In 1839 he was elected a fellow of Trinity, and for a short time studied law. He took orders in 1841, and became vicar of St Martin's, Leicester. Three years later he was elected headmaster of Harrow School. He resigned the headship in 1859 because of his homosexuality and accepted the bishopric of Rochester, but afterwards withdrew his acceptance. In 1860 he was appointed vicar of Doncaster. It was in this capacity that he was celebrant for the marriage of the new Headmaster of Harrow School, the Revd Henry Montagu Butler, in December 1861. In 1869 he was appointed Master of the Temple in 1869, and Dean of Llandaff in 1879, a post he held until his death. In 1894 he was elected president of University College, Cardiff, in recognition of the prominent part he took in its foundation.

Vaughan was a well-known Broad Churchman, an eloquent preacher and an able writer on theological subjects, his numerous works including lectures, commentaries and sermons. His greatest contribution to the Church of England was the help he gave to over 400 graduates preparing themselves for Ordination. These men became known as 'Vaughan's doves'. Eighteen of them became Bishops, and two of them Archbishops.

Vaughan wrote the first published New Testament commentary that utilized the scholarship of Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton Hort. In his 1859 book St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: with notes Vaughan thanked Westcott for allowing him to use the text being prepared for the new recension.

"Mr Westcott has thus allowed me to anticipate (with regard to this Epistle) the publication of that complete recension of the text of the New Testament, on which he has been for some time engaged."

In 1871, Vaughan joined the English Revision Committee, New Testament company, where the text of Westcott and Hort became the working papers source for the Revision Committee. Westcott had been an assistant master under Vaughan at Harrow from 1852 to 1859.

He died in 1897 in the Llandaff deanery and was buried within the cathedral grounds. He had married in 1850 Catherine Maria Stanley, youngest daughter of Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich.

F. D. How included Vaughan in the 1904 book Six Great Schoolmasters.

Alleged paedophilia at Harrow

Until the 1970s no convincing reason for Vaughan's resignation from Harrow School was known. Speculation ended when Phyllis Grosskurth discovered the diaries of John Addington Symonds, who attended Harrow School while Vaughan was headmaster. The following account based on what Symonds wrote is accepted in some quarters, though uncorroborated; but John Roach writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography points to discrepancies in the dates, and Symonds's own sexual orientation, as reasons to suspend judgement.

Harrow in the 1840s and 1850s had a schoolboy homosexual culture. Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy calls it "an adolescent boy's jungle; a jungle where lust and brute strength raged completely unrestrained". Symonds was propositioned numerous times. A master at Harrow intercepted a note between two of the boys, and passed it to Vaughan. He summoned the whole school immediately, and read the whole letter aloud. He then banned the sending of such letters, and the use of female nicknames, and flogged both culprits.

Through this incident Vaughan was, in the words of Gathorne-Hardy, "... not for the first time... in the grip of a devastating physical passion which he was completely unable to control." In early 1858, Alfred Pretor (1840–1908), a spirited, good-looking friend of Symonds, sent Symonds a letter, telling him that he was having an affair with Vaughan, and showed him several love letters. Symonds did not mention the incident for over a year, and then in 1859, gave the whole story to John Conington. Conington told Symonds to tell his father John Addington Symonds, a doctor.

Symonds senior wrote to Vaughan to inform him that he knew of his behaviour with Pretor. He would not expose him publicly, as long as Vaughan agreed to resign at once. After a long confrontation, about which nothing is known, Vaughan agreed. On 16 September Vaughan sent a circular to the parents. It read: "I have resolved after much deliberation, to take that opportunity of relieving myself from the long pressure of these heavy duties and anxious responsibilities which are inseparable from such an office, even under the most favourable circumstances." Four years later, in 1863, Vaughan accepted the position of Bishop of Rochester, ignoring Symonds's demand that Vaughan also never hold any high position in the church. Symonds telegraphed Vaughan, ordering him to resign or risk public exposure. So he resigned again. According to Noel Annan, "only after the elder Symonds' death did Vaughan dare to accept the deanery of Llandaff, where his ordinands were known as 'Vaughan's doves.'"

Pretor was furious about the younger Symonds's part in the scandal and refused to speak to him; but the secret was kept. Horatio Brown, Symonds's biographer and literary executor, skipped the Harrow years, saying merely "The autobiography of the Harrow period is not copious". On his death Vaughan had all his papers destroyed and forbade any biography of him to be written. Vaughan had maintained his friendship with Pretor until his death and at his request Pretor undertook the duties of his literary executor.

Works

References

"Trinity College, University of Cambridge". BBC Your Paintings. Archived from the original on 19 November 2014.
"Vaughan, Charles John (VHN834CJ)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
Southern Reporter 25 December 1861
^ Chisholm 1911.
"Review of Six Great Schoolmasters by F. D. How". The Athenaeum (4031): 102. 28 January 1905.
Roach, John. "Vaughan, Charles John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28124. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, The Old School Tie: The Phenomenon of the English Public School (Viking Press, 1977), 80.
Noel Annan, "The Intellectual Aristocracy," reprinted in The Dons, 329.
The Times, London, 13 January 1908, p. 8.

Sources

Bibliographic directory from Project Canterbury.
Gathorne-Hardy, Jonathan (1977). The Old School Tie: The Phenomenon of the English Public School. Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-52316-X
Park, Trevor (2014). Nolo Episcopari: A Life of C. J. Vaughan. ISBN 978-0-9508325-4-8
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vaughan, Charles John". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

Works by Charles Vaughan at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

v t e Masters of the Temple
Thomas Robinson Charles John Vaughan Alfred Ainger Henry George Woods Ernest William Barnes William Henry Draper Spencer Carpenter Harold Anson John Firth Theodore Milford Robert Milburn Joseph Robinson Robin Griffith-Jones

v t e Head Masters of Harrow
Head Masters	1608–1611 Anthony Rate 1611–1615 Thomas or Henry Bradley 1615–1621 William Launce 1621–1628 Robert Whittle 1628–1661 William Hide 1661–1668 Thomas Johnson 1668–1669 Thomas Martin 1669–1685 William Horne 1685–1691 William Bolton 1692–1730 Thomas Brian 1730–1746 James Cox (absconded) 1746–1760 Thomas Thackeray 1760–1771 Robert Carey Sumner 1771–1785 Benjamin Heath 1785–1805 Joseph Drury 1805–1829 George Butler 1829–1836 Dr Charles Longley 1836–1844 Christopher Wordsworth 1845–1859 Dr Charles John Vaughan 1860–1885 Henry Montagu Butler 1885–1898 James Welldon 1898–1910 Dr Joseph Wood 1910–1925 Lionel Ford 1926–1934 Dr Cyril Norwood 1934–1939 Paul Cairn Vellacott 1940–1942 Paul Boissier 1942–1953 Ralph Westwood Moore 1953–1971 Robert Leoline James 1971–1981 Michael Hoban 1981–1991 Ian David Stafford Beer 1991–1999 Nicholas Raymond Bomford 1999–2011 Barnaby Lenon 2011–2018 James Hawkins 2018–2019 Mel Mrowiec (interim) 2019– Alastair Land

Head Masters of Harrow

Head Masters

1608–1611 Anthony Rate
1611–1615 Thomas or Henry Bradley
1615–1621 William Launce
1621–1628 Robert Whittle
1628–1661 William Hide
1661–1668 Thomas Johnson
1668–1669 Thomas Martin
1669–1685 William Horne
1685–1691 William Bolton
1692–1730 Thomas Brian
1730–1746 James Cox (absconded)
1746–1760 Thomas Thackeray
1760–1771 Robert Carey Sumner
1771–1785 Benjamin Heath
1785–1805 Joseph Drury
1805–1829 George Butler
1829–1836 Dr Charles Longley
1836–1844 Christopher Wordsworth
1845–1859 Dr Charles John Vaughan
1860–1885 Henry Montagu Butler
1885–1898 James Welldon
1898–1910 Dr Joseph Wood
1910–1925 Lionel Ford
1926–1934 Dr Cyril Norwood
1934–1939 Paul Cairn Vellacott
1940–1942 Paul Boissier
1942–1953 Ralph Westwood Moore
1953–1971 Robert Leoline James
1971–1981 Michael Hoban
1981–1991 Ian David Stafford Beer
1991–1999 Nicholas Raymond Bomford
1999–2011 Barnaby Lenon
2011–2018 James Hawkins
2018–2019 Mel Mrowiec (interim)
2019– Alastair Land

v t e Deans of Llandaff
John Probyn William Bruce Knight William Conybeare Thomas Williams Henry Lynch Blosse Charles Vaughan William Davey Charles Griffith Frederick Worsley Garfield Williams David Jones Glyn Simon Eryl Thomas Gordon Phillips John Williams Alun Davies John Rogers John Lewis Janet Henderson Gerwyn Capon

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