A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



church in person. By the middle of the century any other action would 

 have been considered a scandal, but it is a fact that from the Reforma- 

 tion until 1827 every Bishop of Winchester had been enthroned by 

 proxy. An earnest and conscientious evangelical, and confining his 

 preferments to clergy of that school, Bishop Sumner was nevertheless 

 respected and esteemed by the whole of his diocese. He held an 

 exhaustive visitation of Hampshire and the rest of the see in 1828.' 



From that date until 1868, when seized with paralysis he resigned 

 the see, the good bishop's life was one of continued faithfulness and 

 vigour. In a ' Conspectus' that he drew up in 1864 it was shown that 

 up to that date Bishop Sumner had consecrated in Hampshire eight new 

 churches as well as sixty-five which had been rebuilt. 



During his time extensive changes were made in the arrangements 

 of the see of Winchester. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, appointed 

 in 1836, at the very threshold of their work ordered that 3,600 a year 

 should be paid by Winchester towards the augmentation of the smaller 

 sees, and in 1851 the bishop's income was fixed at the next avoidance at 

 7,000. This was afterwards diminished to 6,500 by Bishop Browne's 

 assignment of 500 to the new bishopric of St. Albans. In Victoria's 

 reign the boundaries of the see have been altered at three different dates, 

 but those changes have not affected Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. 



Four grand and eminent examples of different schools of thought 

 within the Church of England were closely connected with Hampshire 

 during the nineteenth century. Legh Richmond (1772-1827), the pious 

 evangelical divine, was ordained to the curacy of the parishes of Brading 

 and Yaverland in the Isle of Wight ; his narratives of The Dairyman's 

 Daughter and The Young Cottager were at one time the most popular 

 religious works in England. John Keble (17971866), poet and divine, 

 was rector of Hursley from 1836 to the end of his life. Charles 

 Kingsley (1819-75), Christian socialist and author, was rector of 

 Eversley from 1844 to the time of his death. Richard Chevenix 

 Trench (1807-86), poet and divine, held curacies in Hampshire from 

 1835 to 1844 when he was appointed to the rectory of Itchenstoke, 

 which he resigned for the archbishopric of Dublin in 1863. 



Of the three last well known Bishops of Winchester, Samuel 

 Wilberforce, Edward Harold Browne and Anthony Wilson Thorold, 

 and of Randall Thomas Davidson, the present occupant of the see, it 

 will suffice here to say that in their administration of a high office 

 Hampshire and the diocese at large have been exceptionally favoured. 



1 The life of the good bishop issued by his son in 1876 falls into several mistakes in his contrast 

 of Suraner's energies with his predecessor's laxity. For instance it is stated as to visitations that ' no 

 queries had been officially issued in the diocese since 1788.' This is quite wrong ; it is due to Bishop 

 North to state that visitation articles were issued and printed in 1801. 



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