ixXXVi PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Palmer, Treasurer of Christ's Hospital ; and it was within the walls 

 of that institution that his early years were passed. At eight years 

 of age he entered the Charterhouse School, at that time under 

 Dr. Raine, and at the end of his school career passed to Oriel Col- 

 lege, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's degree in Michaelmas 

 Term 1817, obtaining a second class in both classical and mathema- 

 tical honours. He was ordained deacon in 1818, and priest in the 

 following year, by the then Bishop of London, Dr. Howley. In 

 1824 he became chaplain to Bishop Blomfield, then bishop of 

 Chester (under whom he had served as afternoon and evening lec- 

 turer at Bishopsgate), aud he continued to hold the same position on 

 the promotion of Dr. Blomfield to the see of London. In 1823 he 

 was appointed, mainly through the influence of Archbishop Howley 

 and Bishop Blomfield, to the preachership of the Charterhouse. 

 The duties of this post he continued to discharge until twenty-eight 

 years ago, when on the death of Dr. Philip Fisher he was promoted 

 to the mastership of that foundation. He was advanced by Bishop 

 Blomfield successively to the archdeaconries of St. Alban's and of 

 Middlesex, but was transferred in 1840 to the archdeaconry of 

 London, to which was attached the post of a Canon Besidentiary of 

 St. Paul's Cathedral. He also held the living of St. Giles's Cripple- 

 gate from 1847 to 1857, when he resigned it. The archdeacon was 

 ah active member of the Committee of the Society for Promoting 

 Christian Knowledge, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 

 in Foreign Parts, and of other societies of the English Church. A 

 great friendship existed between the archdeacon and Bishop Blom- 

 field, founded on similarity of tastes and habits of judgment. Both 

 belonged to the school of divines and theologians rather than of 

 popular and attractive preachers. Archdeacon Hale, though so long 

 resident in London, did not take a prominent part in City move- 

 ments. His name seldom appeared in connexion with its strifes or 

 its schemes ; for he had no taste for the platform. While he held 

 the Cripplegate living, he was exemplary in the discharge of his 

 duties as a parish clergyman, and he was active and vigilant in the 

 oversight of his archdeaconry. His periodical charges to the clergy 

 of London were looked for, and commented upon, almost as eagerly 

 as those of the diocesan himself. They were always distinguished 

 by solid good sense, and for the fearless manner in which he grap- 

 pled with the current topics of the day. It was for these charges 

 that he reserved his opinion, not only on the religious, but on the 

 social questions of the day ; and no one reading those charges could 

 fail to see that, though a silent, he was by no means an indifl^erent 



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