Charles Richard Elrington

Charles Richard Elrington (1787–1850) was a

In 1829, he resigned his fellowship, and was elected regius professor of divinity. In 1840, he resigned the chancellorship of Ferns on his collation by the lord primate, on 14 December, to the rectory of Loughgilly, in the diocese of Armagh; and on 22 September in the following year, at the desire of the same patron, he moved to the rectory of the union of Armagh. He effected improvements in the divinity school, over which he presided for twenty years. He died at Armagh on 18 January 1850, and was buried in St. Mark's churchyard there, where there is a brief Latin inscription to his memory.^[1]

Elrington took a very active and prominent part in the formation and management of the Church Education Society, founded to provide funds to support the parochial schools connected with the church, on the withdrawal of the parliamentary grant. Modifications were afterwards introduced into the management of the national schools, which removed, in Elrington's judgement, many of the difficulties which had induced the clergy to stand aloof from the system. In 1847 he retired from his official position in the Church Education Society, and publicly declared that the clergy ought to accept the amended terms offered by the board of national education.^[1]

Works

In 1847 Elrington began the publication of a collected edition of the works of Archbishop James Ussher, to which he prefixed a full biography. He did not live to complete it, and the last two volumes were published by William Reeves. His plan, formed with Henry Cotton and James Henthorn Todd, of bringing out an improved edition of James Ware's History of the Irish Bishops, was not carried into effect before his death.^[2]

He published sermons and pamphlets on the education question, besides theological contributions to periodicals.

Notes

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Blacker, Beaver Henry (1889). "Elrington, Charles Richard". In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 17. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 331, 332. Endnotes:
  • Dublin University
    Calendars
  • Todd's Catalogue of Dublin Graduates
  • Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, ii.357, 371, v. 180
  • Gentlemen's Magazine
    (1850), new ser. xxxiii. pt. i. 678
  • Irish Ecclesiastical Journal (l February 1850), vi. 17
  • Stephens's "Introduction" to volume iii. of the Book of Common Prayer for Ireland, printed for the Ecclesiastical History Society, 1850.