William
Temple, the son of Frederick Temple, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, was born on 15th October, 1881. He was educated
at Rugby (1894-1900) and Balliol
College, Oxford (1900-1904), where
he was president of the student union.
Along with
his friend, A. D. Lindsay, he became
a tutor at the Workers' Educational Association (WEA). He was later
to serve as the organization's president (1908-1924). Influenced
by the ideas of Henry
Scott Holland Temple
decided to enter the Church and he was ordained on 19th December,
1909. The following year he became headmaster of Repton School.
During
the First World War Temple he became the honorary
chaplain to George
V.
He also edited the Challenge (1915-1918) and became the leader of
the Life and Liberty Movement. A socialist,
Temple joined the Labour Party in 1918.
In November
1920 David
Lloyd George offered
Temple the bishopric of Manchester. Temple became a national figure
in 1926 when he joined with A. D. Lindsay
in urging the government to seek a negotiated agreement to the General
Strike.
Temple
also served as the Archbishop of York (1929-40) and the Archbishop
of Canterbury (1942-44). In these posts he became an outspoken advocate
of social reform and became involved in the campaign against unemployment,
poverty and poor housing. George Bernard Shaw
wrote: "to a man of my generation an archbishop of Temple's enlightenment
was a realized impossibility".
In
the 1930s
United Christian Front gained the support of several church leaders.
However, it soon became clear that it was a front for extreme right-wing
politicians. In November 1937 William Temple and Donald
Soper,
a Methodist minister, wrote to The
Times to condemn the United Christian Front: "We
regret that so admirable an inspiration as the union of all Christians
in resistance to the enemies of the Gospel should be bound up with
judgments on contemporary events which are certainly precarious and
to us appear mistaken."
Books by
Temple include Church and Nation
(1915), Personal Religion and the Life of
Fellowship (1926), Christianity
and the State (1928), Nature,
Man and God (1934), Men Without
Work (1938), Christianity and
the Social Order (1942) and The
Church Looks Forward (1944).
William
Temple
died at Westgate-on-Sea, Kent on 26th October, 1944.
(1)
Edward
Heath, The Course of
My Life (1988)
My Christian faith also
provided foundations for my political beliefs. In this, I was influenced
by the teaching of William Temple. Temple's impact on my generation
was immense. He believed that a fairer society could be built only
on moral foundations, with all individuals recognising their
duty to help others. Like
Lindsay, he was a socialist and, in his wish to redress the balance
of power between those who own and those who produce, he sometimes
failed to see that some would seek through socialist measures not
justice, but power for its own sake. He was, however, the first Anglican
leader for decades to set out the Church's teachings in modern terms.
He propounded a view of morality which was not preoccupied with sexuality,
but which was relevant to the myriad problems besetting the individual
in the personal, professional and social spheres. On mainland Europe,
the related but more conservative doctrines of Christian Democracy
had, regrettably, been submerged by fascism and nationalism. But many
of us were already intrigued and rather attracted by the apparent
kinship of Christian Democratic thinking with our own moderate Conservatism,
which we similarly predicated upon the view that the individual can
be truly fulfilled only as part of a social unit.
(2)
Henry
(Chips) Channon,
diary entry (27th
September, 1942)
The old Archbishop, heaven knows, was foolish and wicked
enough, but the new obese one is positively dangerous. He now openly
preaches Socialism from a platform which he shares with Cripps - Is
England mad, and doomed? But perhaps it is as well that the Revolution
should come from the top, rather than the bottom. But almost everything
that I loved has disappeared in under three years.
(3)
Archbishop William Temple, Evening Standard
(10th July, 1943)
I commend the endurance,
mutual helpfulness, and constancy, which during the "blitz"
reached heroic proportions but people are not conscious of injuring
the war effort by dishonesty or by sexual indulgence. There is a danger
that we may win the war abnd be unfit to use the victory.
(4)
F. A. Iremonger, William Temple (1944)
During his two primacies
three particular motives were to be discerned at the heart of his
greatest efforts and achievements. Of these the first was the desire
for social and national righteousness. This dominant passion possessed
him from his earliest years; it had led him into the Workers' Educational
Association and later into the Labour Party which he joined in 1918...
In speeches throughout the country for the 'Religion and Life' campaign,
in letters to The Times - here even his most loyal friends
felt that he might have shown a more selective restraint - he developed
his plea for justice and righteousness.
(5)
Henry
(Chips) Channon,
diary entry (26th
October, 1944)
Death, who has been on holiday, bagged both old Princess
Beatrice, the Queen of Spain's mother and the Archbishop of Canterbury,
today... The Archbishop was ... a fat fool of 63 with a fuddled, muddled
brain, who really looked more like Queen Victoria than her daughter
did. He was a Socialist, and Winston was much criticised for appointing
him: now after 2 years he can put that right. Temple often consulted
Rab in the Foreign Office days, and we were frequently obliged to
alter his broadcasts, as they were so injudicious. He was then York.
Winston is quoted as being jubilant about his death, and remarked
"Look, only 63, a teetotaller, and look at me, not a teetotaller,
and 70".
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