Archibald Campbell Tait
Archibald Campbell Tait (born December 21, 1811 in Edinburgh , Scotland , † December 3, 1882 in Addington , Surrey , England ) was a British clergyman of the Anglican Community and last from 1868 to 1882 Archbishop of Canterbury .
Life
Degree and Dean of Carlisle
Originally from a Presbyterian family, Tait joined the Scottish Episcopal Church early on and studied at the University of Glasgow . Once there he one in October 1830 scholarship was awarded the Snell Exhibition, he became a student at Balliol College of Oxford University and graduated degree in classical languages and literature Altertums- (Literae Humaniores) with honors in 1833 from. He then became a fellow and tutor at Balliol College, also attended a seminary and received ordination as a deacon in 1836 . After his ordination as a priest in 1838 he was appointed curate of Baldon.
Due to quick changes within the tutelage, he was also the one of the four tutors at Balliol College with the longest tenure and the greatest responsibility at that time. As an opponent of the Oxford movement , after the publication of the Tract XC written by John Henry Newman in 1841, he organized the well-known protest of the four tutors of Balliol College against the attempt to bring the Catholic principles and early church orientations underlying Anglicanism to greater advantage. On the other hand, although he had sympathy for the liberal endeavors at the university, he did not take on a leading role within this group.
In 1842 Tait succeeded Thomas Arnold as Rector of the Rugby School , but had to resign after a serious illness in 1848. In 1843 he married Catherine Spooner in rugby . After he had recovered from the disease, he was appointed Dean of the City of Carlisle in 1849 and held this office until 1856. During this time he was also a member of the Oxford University Commission from 1850 to 1852 and earned in addition to an extraordinary merited pastoral work in the renovation of Carlisle Cathedral. In the spring of 1856 he suffered a severe personal blow when five of his children died of scarlet fever within five weeks .
Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury
On November 22, 1856, he was a follower of Charles James Blomfield the Bishop of London consecrated. As Bishop of London he continued the reorganization of the episcopate begun by Blomfield with great effort and interest. While Blomfield is engaged especially in church, founded Tait after his inauguration in 1863, the Foundation of the Bishop of London (Bishop of London's Fund). He spent a large part of it in London with evangelism and was particularly committed to expanding the pastoral work of the clergy in his diocese . Together with his wife, he was significantly involved in building up women's work and contributed to the necessary organization of the Anglican sororities. In addition, he carried out successful measures for administration and organization and also tried to achieve practical use for his work through his membership in the House of Lords connected with the office of bishop .
After he had rejected the appointment of Archbishop of York in 1862 , he succeeded Charles Thomas Longley Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of the Church of England in 1868, and held these offices until his death. The last years of his life were marked by illnesses and the death of his only son Crauford Tait and his wife in 1878.
Works, achievements and controversies
Tait was instrumental in reforming the terms of employment as a priest (1865), the new lectionary (1871), and the Burial Act (1880). It went up to him, the establishment of the Royal Commissions on rituals (Royal Commissions on ritual) in 1867 and the ecclesiastical courts , called the Ecclesiastical Courts, in 1881 returned. In addition, he was instrumental in founding and conducting the Lambeth conferences .
On the other hand, however, he had little success in dealing with later liberalism and the later Catholic currents from the Oxford movement. Although he himself sympathized with liberal ideas early on, his views on matters of faith and ecclesiastical rituals were mostly practical: he wanted peace and obedience to the law as he saw it. After his sympathies made him look useful to a movement, he found himself forced to revise views. So he expressed his appreciation for some authors of essays and reviews , but then joined the censorship of this publication in 1861 . Similar behavior could also be seen in other cases, such as the case of the Bishop of Natal John William Colenso in 1863 and in the controversy over the use or abuse of the creed of Athanasius the Great in 1872.
On the other hand, he was confronted with Catholic tendencies during his entire period as bishop, especially with regard to religious rites . During his tenure as bishop the uprisings broke out in the Ward of St George in the East in 1859 and in St Albans in 1867 . In 1877 he participated as an assessor in the proceedings in the Ridsdale case before the Privy Council and was more involved than any other bishop in the agitation against confession in the years 1858 and 1877. His method was always the same: he tried to clarify compliance with the law through the courts. If this failed, he tried to enforce the observance of the rules of a full professor to ensure the peace of the church. He failed to notice how much common sense the "ritualists" had on their side: that they fought for practices which they claimed were covered by the rubrics in the missal and that where rubrics were notoriously neglected, it was not fair was to act only on a group of delinquents.
While others ignored this, Tait could only point to the relationship between the Church of England and the state. Because of this position, it was only possible to pass legislation on the removal of insurgent clergy, which was implemented in 1874 with the Public Worship Regulation Act . However, Tait was not solely responsible for the regulations contained therein, but rather the result of agreements between the bishops and the President of the British Bible Association, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury . The implementation of the law followed inevitably: the clergy like Thomas Pelham Dale were tried before a new tribunal and not only removed from the ministry, but imprisoned. A widespread feeling of indignation then spread not only among senior churchmen, but also among many who had shown little or no interest in the ritual practices being attacked. Tait then tried to alleviate the situation, as with the removal of the priest of St Alban in Holborn. As a result, although the disagreement about the religious rites was not resolved, it was subsequently treated differently, so that the Public Worship Regulation Act became practically obsolete.
source
The source of the article is the detailed biography from Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 55 (Tait, Archibald Campbell by William Henry Fremantle)
Web links
- Literature by and about Archibald Campbell Tait in the catalog of the German National Library
- Archibald Tait in the nndb (English)
Individual evidence
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Charles James Blomfield |
Bishop of London 1856–1868 |
John Jackson |
| Charles Thomas Longley |
Archbishop of Canterbury 1868–1882 |
Edward White Benson |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tait, Archibald Campbell |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English clergyman, Archbishop of Canterbury |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 21, 1811 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Edinburgh , Scotland |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 3, 1882 |
| Place of death | Addington , Surrey , England |