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Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Kingsley, Rev Charles

12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875

Charles Kingsley was born at Holne, Devon and educated at Kings College, London and Magdalene College, Cambridge.  He took holy orders and married Fanny Grenfell and in 1844 was given the living at Eversley, after being curate there for two years.  At that time Eversley was a remote village in the northeast Hampshire heathland fringed by forest, but Kingsley worked hard to improve life for his poorer parishioners.

His first two novels, Yeast and Alton Locke, revealed his sympathies for the working classes.  In 1860 he was made Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, a post he held for nine years. While at Cambridge he published the children’s fable, The Water Babies. He was a canon at both Chester and Westminster, although he retained the living at Eversley.   While at Chester he was prominent in the creation of the Grosvenor Museum.

His interest in history is evident in several of his writings, including The Heroes, Hypatia, Hereward the Wake and Westward Ho! and he was sympathetic to the idea of evolution as proposed by Darwin.  He did hold questionable views on aspects of race.

His fame took him abroad and he toured through Canada and the United States in 1874 but suffered a severe attack of pleurisy in Colorado Springs and died the following year at his Eversley home.

Sources

Portrait

Rev Charles Kingsley

Contribution to county’s history

Novelist and writer of international repute who was associated with Eversley for 30 years and held the post of Professor of Modern History at Cambridge from 1860 – 1869.

Relevant published works

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Contributor

Dave Allen July 2022

Key Words

Eversley

Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

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