Edward Hawkins
Edward Hawkins (27 February 1789 – 18 November 1882) was an English churchman and academic, a long-serving Provost of Oriel College, Oxford known as a committed opponent of the Oxford Movement from its beginnings in his college.
Life
He was born at
With
On 2 February 1828 Hawkins was elected by the fellows provost of Oriel, in succession to Copleston who had been appointed
As Provost he was not at ease with the undergraduates, and in his relations with the fellowship was jealous of his authority. In 1831 the three tutors, Newman,
He was one of the heads of houses who supplied no official information to the university commissioners appointed in 1850; but when, in 1854, a new order of things was established both in the college and the university, he accepted it. In 1874 a vice-provost was on Hawkins's petition to the Visitor (the Crown) appointed at Oriel, and Hawkins, at the age of eighty-five, finally left Oxford. He retired to his house in the precincts at Rochester. He protested in vain in 1875 against the future severance of the canonry at Rochester from the provostship of Oriel, and in 1879 addressed a memorial to the Oxford University commissioners against the abolition at Oriel of the necessity for all the fellows, except three, to be in holy orders. He died, after a few days' illness, on 18 November 1882, within three months of completing his ninety-fourth year, and was buried in the cathedral cemetery at Rochester.
Works
On 31 May 1818 he preached in the university pulpit a sermon that became well known. The substance of the sermon was published in 1819, and was reprinted by the Christian Knowledge Society in 1889, with the title, A Dissertation upon the Use and Importance of Unauthoritative Tradition. John Henry Newman, who as an undergraduate heard it preached, mentioned it in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua:
It made a most serious impression upon me. ... He lays down a proposition, self-evident as soon as stated, to those who have at all examined the structure of Scripture, viz. that the sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it; and that if we would learn doctrine we must have recourse to the formularies of the church; for instance, to the Catechism and to the Creeds.
Hawkins afterwards treated the same subject more fully in his
Hawkins edited John Milton's poetical works, with notes, and Newton's life of the poet, 4 vols. Oxford, 1824. He also published numerous sermons, including
- 'The Duty of Private Judgment,' Oxford, 1838;
- 'The Province of Private Judgment and the Right Conduct of Religious Inquiry,' 1861; and
- 'The Liberty of Private Judgment within the Church of England,' 1863.
Other works are:
- 'Discourses upon some of the Principal Objects and Uses of the Historical Scriptures of the Old Testament,' Oxford, 1833.
- 'A Letter ... upon the Oaths, Dispensations, and Subscription to the XXXIX Articles,' &c., 1835.
- 'The Duty and the Means of Promoting Christian Knowledge without Impairing Christian Unity,' London, 1838.
- 'The Apostolical Succession,' London, 1842.
- 'The Nature and Obligation of Apostolic Order,' London, 1842.
- 'Sermons on the Church,' London, 1847.
- 'A Manual for Christians; designed for their Use at any time after Confirmation,' Oxford, 1826, which went through at least seven editions before 1870.
- 'Sermons on Scripture Types and Sacraments,' London, 1851.
- 'The Duty of Moral Courage,' Oxford, 1852.
- 'A Letter ... upon the Future Representation of the University of Oxford,' Oxford, 1853.
- 'A Letter ... upon a Recent Statute ... with Reference to Dissent and Occasional Conformity,' 1855.
- 'Spiritual Destitution at Home,' Oxford, 1860.
- 'Notes upon Subscription, Academical and Clerical,' Oxford, 1864.
- 'Additional Notes on Subscription,' &c., Oxford, 1866.
- 'The Pestilence in its Relation to Divine Providence and Prayer,' London, 1867.
Family
He married on 28 December 1828 Mary Ann Buckle (died 14 January 1892) who with a son and daughter survived him. Two daughters and his eldest son died before him; the latter went out on the universities' mission to Central Africa, and died in 1862 at the age of twenty-nine.
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Hawkins, Edward (1789-1882)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.