Alverstoke
Alverstoke is a small settlement contiguous with the town of Gosport, on the south coast of Hampshire. It stretches east-west from Fort Blockhouse, Haslar to Browndown Battery, is centred 0.5 miles east of the shore of Stokes Bay and near the head of a creek which extends a mile westward from Portsmouth Harbour. Residents of Alverstoke have at times in the 20th century been called'The Alverstocracy' by some residents of Gosport, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, due to higher house prices and a perceived higher social status of the area; the name'Alverstoke' is most to be derived from a corruption of the name Alwara – an Anglo-Saxon Lady of the Manor – and Stoke, a settlement on the area of Alverstoke. Alverstoke is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Alwarestock. Official Crown and Manorial records for the village refer to "The liberty of Alverstoke with Gosport", although the name has evolved over the years: from Alwarestoch/Halwarestoke, in the 11th to 13th centuries, to Alvardestoke, in the 14th century, to Aillewardstoke, in the 15th century, to Alverstoke, by the 16th century.
Until the early 19th century, the parish of Alverstoke measured some 4.5 miles from north to south, 2.5 miles from east to west, covering most of present-day Gosport. The parish still stretched north, adjoining Titchfield parishes. South to the Solent, east as far as Portsmouth Harbour, west to the parish of Rowner, into the 20th century. However, large parts of the north and east of the parish were split into separate parishes between 1840 and 1913. In the late 19th century Alverstoke became built up, some of the fields separating it from Gosport disappeared. Both parishes formed part of an Urban District, which prevented the need for creation of a civil parish. Today, the ecclesiastical parish, once a large agricultural one containing the villages of Alverstoke and Gosport, comprises a smaller and residential area now within the Borough of Gosport. By the early 19th century, as seaside towns became fashionable for polite society, an area known as Angleseyville was developed by the speculator Robert Cruikshank, named in honour of the Marquis of Anglesey.
This new area was to contain a racecourse, chapel and pumphouse, genteel gardens, a hotel, fine townhouses emulating the grand Georgian crescents of the day. But Cruikshank speculated on an architect, only 21 and somewhat untested. Although the hotel was erected first, such that purchasers could see what would be built, the scheme overall was not a financial success, was therefore only completed, its St. Mark's Chapel had never become more than a chapel of ease to the local parish church only a quarter of a mile away, was demolished by the early 20th century. Nonetheless, its small burial plot still contains 261 known burials, including many with high society connections: nine admirals, eight generals, two baronets, various members of the Churchill, Jellicoe and Bonham-Carter families. Today, the Crescent stands as testimony to what might have been, but still only fulfils half of the original design, it does, still house the Anglesey Arms Hotel. The Crescent is now Grade II* listed, its award-winning Georgian era gardens are open to the public to visit all year round.
The district and village of Alverstoke sits West and south of Stoke Lake, from South west of Haslar Road, Clayhall Road West side - towards Alverstoke Green, south to Crescent Road, west to Stokes Bay Road and up to the south side of Bury Road. Alverstoke Borders Map. Several of Palmerston's Follies are sited within the parish, including Fort Gilkicker, a 19th-century coastal battery fort, located at the eastern end of Stokes Bay, where it sits across a wide curved natural headland taken up by Gosport & Stokes Bay Golf Club. To the east is Fort Monckton; the Grade II listed parish church of St. Mary is one of three Church of England churches in the parish, the others being St Faith's Church by Tribe Road and St Francis, Alverstoke between St Francis Road and Waterloo Road, Haslar. St. Mary's is of medieval origin, but has been rebuilt and altered over the years; the original church was replaced by the present structure, as designed by Henry Woodyer in the decorated style, when rebuilt 1863–85: its chancel was completed in 1865, extends to three bays, two having arches to the north and south chapels.
Its western tower was built in 1906. Infanta Maria Francisca of Portugal, wife of the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, died in the rectory in 1834 whilst awaiting for her property in the Crescent to be completed. Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, accepted the rectory of Alverstoke in October 1840 John Wickham Legg and writer, was born here on 28 December 1843 King Henry II of England is known to have crossed to France from Stokes Bay in Alverstoke on more than one occasion. Notes References Alverstoke in t
Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, was a British statesman of the Conservative Party who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy", he made the Conservatives the party most identified with the power of the British Empire. He is the only British prime minister to have been of Jewish birth, he was a novelist, publishing works of fiction as prime minister. Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury a part of Middlesex, his father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue. After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. In 1846 the Prime Minister at the time, Sir Robert Peel, split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which involved ending the tariff on imported grain.
Disraeli clashed with Peel in the House of Commons. Disraeli became a major figure in the party; when Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s, Disraeli served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. Upon Derby's retirement in 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister before losing that year's general election, he returned to the Opposition, before leading the party to winning a majority in the 1874 general election. He maintained a close friendship with Queen Victoria, who in 1876 appointed him Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli's second term was dominated by the Eastern Question—the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire and the desire of other European powers, such as Russia, to gain at its expense. Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company. In 1878, faced with Russian victories against the Ottomans, he worked at the Congress of Berlin to obtain peace in the Balkans at terms favourable to Britain and unfavourable to Russia, its longstanding enemy.
This diplomatic victory over Russia established Disraeli as one of Europe's leading statesmen. World events thereafter moved against the Conservatives. Controversial wars in Afghanistan and South Africa undermined his public support, he angered British farmers by refusing to reinstitute the Corn Laws in response to poor harvests and cheap imported grain. With Gladstone conducting a massive speaking campaign, his Liberals bested Disraeli's Conservatives at the 1880 general election. In his final months, Disraeli led the Conservatives in Opposition, he had throughout his career written novels, beginning in 1826, he published his last completed novel, shortly before he died at the age of 76. Disraeli was born on 21 December 1804 at 6 King's Road, Bedford Row, London, the second child and eldest son of Isaac D'Israeli, a literary critic and historian, Maria, née Basevi; the family was of Sephardic Jewish Italian mercantile background. All Disraeli's grandparents and great-grandparents were born in Italy.
Disraeli romanticised his origins, claiming that his father's family was of grand Spanish and Venetian descent. Historians differ on Disraeli's motives for rewriting his family history: Bernard Glassman argues that it was intended to give him status comparable to that of England's ruling elite. Disraeli's siblings were Sarah, Naphtali and James, he was close to his sister, on affectionate but more distant terms with his surviving brothers. Details of his schooling are sketchy. From the age of about six he was a day boy at a dame school in Islington that one of his biographers described as "for those days a high-class establishment". Two years or so—the exact date has not been ascertained—he was sent as a boarder to Rev John Potticary's St Piran's school at Blackheath. While he was there events at the family home changed the course of Disraeli's education and of his whole life: his father renounced Judaism and had the four children baptised into the Church of England in July and August 1817. Isaac D'Israeli had never taken religion seriously, but had remained a conforming member of the Bevis Marks Synagogue.
His father, the elder Benjamin, was a devout member. After Benjamin senior died in 1816 Isaac felt free to leave the congregation following a second dispute. Isaac's friend Sharon Turner, a solicitor, convinced him that although he could comfortably remain unattached to any formal religion it would be disadvantageous to the children if they did so. Turner stood as godfather when Benjamin was baptised, aged twelve, on 31 July 1817. Conversion to Christianity enabled Disraeli to contemplate a career in politics. Britain in the early-nineteenth century was not a anti-Semitic society, there had been Members of Parliament from Jewish families since Samson Gideon in 1770, but until 1858, MPs were required to take the oath of allegiance "on the true faith of a Christian", necessitating at least nominal conversion. It is not known whether Disraeli formed any ambition for a parliamentary career at
Liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they support limited government, individual rights, democracy, gender equality, racial equality, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, when it became popular among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy and the rule of law. Liberals ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies and other barriers to trade, instead promoting free markets. Philosopher John Locke is credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition, arguing that each man has a natural right to life and property, adding that governments must not violate these rights based on the social contract.
While the British liberal tradition has emphasised expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasised rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building. Leaders in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789 used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of royal tyranny. Liberalism started to spread especially after the French Revolution; the 19th century saw liberal governments established in nations across Europe and South America, whereas it was well-established alongside republicanism in the United States. In Victorian Britain, it was used to critique the political establishment, appealing to science and reason on behalf of the people. During 19th and early 20th century, liberalism in the Ottoman Empire and Middle East influenced periods of reform such as the Tanzimat and Al-Nahda as well as the rise of secularism, constitutionalism and nationalism; these changes, along with other factors, helped to create a sense of crisis within Islam, which continues to this day, leading to Islamic revivalism.
Before 1920, the main ideological opponent of classical liberalism was conservatism, but liberalism faced major ideological challenges from new opponents: fascism and communism. However, during the 20th century liberal ideas spread further—especially in Western Europe—as liberal democracies found themselves on the winning side in both world wars. In Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism became a key component in the expansion of the welfare state. Today, liberal parties continue to wield influence throughout the world. However, liberalism still has challenges to overcome in Asia; the fundamental elements of contemporary society have liberal roots. The early waves of liberalism popularised economic individualism while expanding constitutional government and parliamentary authority. Liberals sought and established a constitutional order that prized important individual freedoms, such as freedom of speech and freedom of association. Waves of modern liberal thought and struggle were influenced by the need to expand civil rights.
Liberals have advocated gender and racial equality in their drive to promote civil rights and a global civil rights movement in the 20th century achieved several objectives towards both goals. Continental European liberalism is divided between moderates and progressives, with the moderates tending to elitism and the progressives supporting the universalisation of fundamental institutions, such as universal suffrage, universal education and the expansion of property rights. Over time, the moderates displaced the progressives as the main guardians of continental European liberalism. Words such as liberal, liberty and libertine all trace their history to the Latin liber, which means "free". One of the first recorded instances of the word liberal occurs in 1375, when it was used to describe the liberal arts in the context of an education desirable for a free-born man; the word's early connection with the classical education of a medieval university soon gave way to a proliferation of different denotations and connotations.
Liberal could refer to "free in bestowing" as early as 1387, "made without stint" in 1433, "freely permitted" in 1530 and "free from restraint"—often as a pejorative remark—in the 16th and the 17th centuries. In 16th century England, liberal could have positive or negative attributes in referring to someone's generosity or indiscretion. In Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare wrote of "a liberal villaine" who "hath confest his vile encounters". With the rise of the Enlightenment, the word acquired decisively more positive undertones, being defined as "free from narrow prejudice" in 1781 and "free from bigotry" in 1823. In 1815, the first use of the word "liberalism" appeared in English. In Spain, the liberales, the first group to use the liberal label in a political context, fought for decades for the implementation of the 1812 Constitution. From 1820 to 1823 during the Trienio Liberal, King Ferdinand VII was compelled by the liberales to swear to uphold the Constitution. By the middle of the 19th century, liberal was used as a politicised term for parties and movements worldwide.
Over time, the meaning of the word liberalism began to diverge in different parts of the world. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the United States, liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal programme of the Democratic administration of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, where
Oxford Union
The Oxford Union Society referred to as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford, whose membership is drawn from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest University Unions; the Oxford Union exists independently from the University and is separate from the Oxford University Student Union. The Oxford Union has a tradition of hosting some of the world's most prominent individuals across politics and popular culture, including US Presidents Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron and Theresa May, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, activists Malcolm X, Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, actor Morgan Freeman, musicians Sir Elton John and Michael Jackson and sportspeople Diego Maradona and Manny Pacquiao; the University university restricted junior members from discussing certain issues. Although such restrictions have since been lifted, the Oxford Union has remained separate from and independent of the University, is constitutionally bound to remain so.
Only members of Oxford University are eligible to become life members of the Union, but students at certain other educational institutions are entitled to join for the duration of their time in Oxford, including: Magna Carta College Oxford Brookes University Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Ripon College, Cuddesdon Ruskin College Sarah Lawrence ProgrammeShorter membership is extended to those participating in some visiting study programmes in Oxford as well as staff members of the University of Oxford or any of its colleges or Permanent Private Halls. Residential memberships are available to Oxford residents who are not from the university, but only if they are deemed worthy by a full meeting of officers of the Union; the Union buildings are owned by a separate charitable trust, the Oxford Literary and Debating Union Trust. The Oxford Union buildings are located in Frewin Court, off Cornmarket Street, on St Michael's Street; the original Union buildings were designed by Benjamin Woodward and opened in 1857.
The society soon outgrew these premises and commissioned Alfred Waterhouse to design a free-standing debating chamber in the gardens, opened in 1879. This was about a decade after the completion of the Cambridge Union's premises designed by Waterhouse, the exterior of the two buildings is similar; the original Woodward debating chamber is now known as "The Old Library". The Old Library is best known for its Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, referred to as the Oxford Union murals; the current debating chamber, several further extensions to the main buildings were added over the next forty years. The final extension was designed in a conventional Gothic Revival style by Walter Mills and Thorpe and built in 1910-11, it provides the MacMillan Room as well as the Goodman Library, underneath which there are basement library stacks. The Union consists of a Bar on the ground floor, the Morris Room and Snooker Room on the first floor, a Members' TV Room on the third floor, along with separate offices for the President, Librarian and Secretary.
Many of the rooms in the Union are named after figures from the Union's past, such as the Goodman Library, with its oriel windows, the wood-panelled MacMillan Room with barrel ceiling. The buildings have been added to with paintings and statues of past presidents and prominent members; the Old Library contains a fireplace situated in the middle of the floor, with a concealed flue, a rare design of which only a handful of examples survive in the UK. In the debating chamber there are busts of such notables as Roy Jenkins, Edward Heath, Michael Heseltine, George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston and William Ewart Gladstone. There is a grand piano in the debating chamber known as the "Bartlet-Jones Piano" after the Oxford University Music Society president who found it dusty and forgotten in a cupboard in the Holywell Music Room and placed it on permanent loan to the Union; the piano was unveiled by Vladimir Ashkenazy, who famously refused to play it in front of the packed chamber because he "had not warmed up".
The despatch boxes which continue to be used in Union debates are modelled on those in the House of Commons, were offered to the House during World War II. As as the 1970s the Oxford Union still provided a full silver service dining room for its members, which like its famous bar was the afternoon and evening venue of choice for many of the university's leading undergraduate journalists and politicos. To be invited to dine at the large table in the bay window, the usual domain of the Union's president, was considered the acme of attainment in that particular sphere of the university, it was said more plots were hatched around that particular table on a regular evening than in the Houses of Parliament on Bonfire Night. The Union's two libraries were extensively used by that same cadre of undergraduates studying humanities, who were rushing at the last minute to complete the obligatory weekly essay for their formal university education; the Union's buildings were used as a location for the films Oxford Blues and The Madness of King George.
Debating at the Oxford Union takes two forms — competitive debating and chamber debating. Competitive debating offers members of the Union debate workshops and a platform upon which to practice and improve their debating skills; the Union's best debaters compete internationally against other top debating societies, the Oxford Union fields one of
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church members of the Church of England which developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy and theology, they thought of Anglicanism as one of three branches of the One, Holy and Apostolic Church. The movement's philosophy was known as Tractarianism after its series of publications, the Tracts for the Times, published from 1833 to 1841. Tractarians were disparagingly referred to as "Newmanites" and "Puseyites" after two prominent Tractarians, John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey. Other well-known Tractarians included John Keble, Charles Marriott, Richard Froude, Robert Wilberforce, Isaac Williams and William Palmer. In the early nineteenth century, different groups were present in the Church of England. Many in high office, saw themselves as latitudinarian in an attempt to broaden the Church's appeal.
Conversely, many clergy in the parishes were Evangelicals, as a result of the revival led by John Wesley and others. Alongside this, the universities became the breeding ground for a movement to restore liturgical and devotional customs which borrowed from traditions before the English Reformation as well as contemporary Roman Catholic traditions; the immediate impetus for the Tractarian movement was a perceived attack by the reforming Whig administration on the structure and revenues of the Church of Ireland, with the Irish Church Temporalities Bill. This bill not only legislated administrative changes of the hierarchy of the church but made changes to the leasing of church lands, which some feared would result in a secular appropriation of ecclesiastical property. John Keble criticised these proposals as "National Apostasy" in his Assize Sermon in Oxford in 1833; the Tractarians criticised theological liberalism. Their interest in Christian origins caused some of them to reconsider the relationship of the Church of England with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Tractarians postulated the Branch Theory, which states that Anglicanism along with Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism form three "branches" of the historic Catholic Church. Tractarians argued for the inclusion of traditional aspects of liturgy from medieval religious practice, as they believed the church had become too "plain". In the final tract, "Tract 90", Newman argued that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, as defined by the Council of Trent, were compatible with the Thirty-Nine Articles of the 16th-century Church of England. Newman's eventual reception into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845, followed by Henry Edward Manning in 1851, had a profound effect upon the movement. Apart from the Tracts for the Times, the group began a collection of translations of the Church Fathers, which they termed the Library of the Fathers; the collection comprised 48 volumes, the last published three years after Pusey's death. They were issued through Rivington's company with the imprint of the Holyrood Press.
The main editor for many of these was Charles Marriott. A number of volumes of original Greek and Latin texts was published. One of the main contributions that resulted from Tractarianism is the hymnbook entitled Hymns Ancient and Modern, published in 1861; the Oxford Movement was criticised for being a mere "Romanising" tendency, but it began to influence the theory and practice of Anglicanism more broadly. Paradoxically, the Oxford Movement was criticised for being both secretive and collusive; the Oxford Movement resulted in the establishment of Anglican religious orders, both of men and of women. It incorporated ideas and practices related to the practice of liturgy and ceremony to incorporate more powerful emotional symbolism in the church. In particular it brought the insights of the Liturgical Movement into the life of the church, its effects were so widespread that the Eucharist became more central to worship, vestments became common, numerous Roman Catholic practices were re-introduced into worship.
This led to controversies within churches that resulted in court cases, as in the dispute about ritualism. Because bishops refused to give livings to Tractarian priests, many of them began working in slums. From their new ministries, they developed a critique of British social policy, both local and national. One of the results was the establishment of the Christian Social Union, of which a number of bishops were members, where issues such as the just wage, the system of property renting, infant mortality and industrial conditions were debated; the more radical Catholic Crusade was a much smaller organisation than the Oxford Movement. Anglo-Catholicism – as this complex of ideas and organisations became known – had a significant influence on global Anglicanism. One of the principal writers and proponents of Tractarianism was John Henry Newman, a popular Oxford priest who, after writing his final tract, "Tract 90", became convinced that the Branch Theory was inadequate. Concerns that Tractarianism was a disguised Roman Catholic movement were not unfounded.
He was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and was ordained a priest of the Church the same year. He became a cardinal. Writing on th
Evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Different characteristics tend to exist within any given population as a result of mutation, genetic recombination and other sources of genetic variation. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or rare within a population, it is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms and molecules. The scientific theory of evolution by natural selection was proposed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-19th century and was set out in detail in Darwin's book On the Origin of Species. Evolution by natural selection was first demonstrated by the observation that more offspring are produced than can survive.
This is followed by three observable facts about living organisms: 1) traits vary among individuals with respect to their morphology and behaviour, 2) different traits confer different rates of survival and reproduction and 3) traits can be passed from generation to generation. Thus, in successive generations members of a population are more to be replaced by the progenies of parents with favourable characteristics that have enabled them to survive and reproduce in their respective environments. In the early 20th century, other competing ideas of evolution such as mutationism and orthogenesis were refuted as the modern synthesis reconciled Darwinian evolution with classical genetics, which established adaptive evolution as being caused by natural selection acting on Mendelian genetic variation. All life on Earth shares a last universal common ancestor that lived 3.5–3.8 billion years ago. The fossil record includes a progression from early biogenic graphite, to microbial mat fossils, to fossilised multicellular organisms.
Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped by repeated formations of new species, changes within species and loss of species throughout the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Morphological and biochemical traits are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, can be used to reconstruct phylogenetic trees. Evolutionary biologists have continued to study various aspects of evolution by forming and testing hypotheses as well as constructing theories based on evidence from the field or laboratory and on data generated by the methods of mathematical and theoretical biology, their discoveries have influenced not just the development of biology but numerous other scientific and industrial fields, including agriculture and computer science. The proposal that one type of organism could descend from another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander and Empedocles; such proposals survived into Roman times. The poet and philosopher Lucretius followed Empedocles in his masterwork De rerum natura.
In contrast to these materialistic views, Aristotelianism considered all natural things as actualisations of fixed natural possibilities, known as forms. This was part of a medieval teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order. Variations of this idea became the standard understanding of the Middle Ages and were integrated into Christian learning, but Aristotle did not demand that real types of organisms always correspond one-for-one with exact metaphysical forms and gave examples of how new types of living things could come to be. In the 17th century, the new method of modern science rejected the Aristotelian approach, it sought explanations of natural phenomena in terms of physical laws that were the same for all visible things and that did not require the existence of any fixed natural categories or divine cosmic order. However, this new approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences, the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types.
John Ray applied one of the more general terms for fixed natural types, "species," to plant and animal types, but he identified each type of living thing as a species and proposed that each species could be defined by the features that perpetuated themselves generation after generation. The biological classification introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1735 explicitly recognised the hierarchical nature of species relationships, but still viewed species as fixed according to a divine plan. Other naturalists of this time speculated on the evolutionary change of species over time according to natural laws. In 1751, Pierre Louis Maupertuis wrote of natural modifications occurring during reproduction and accumulating over many generations to produce new species. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon suggested that species could degenerate into different organisms, Erasmus Darwin proposed that all warm-blooded animals could have descended from a single microorganism; the first full-fledged evolutionary scheme was Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's "transmutation" theory of 1809, which envisaged spontaneous generation continually producing simple forms of life that developed greater complexity in parallel lineages with an inherent progressive tendency, postulated that on a local level, these lineages adapted to the environment by inheriting changes caused by their use or disuse in parents.
These ideas were cond
Renn Hampden
Renn Dickson Hampden was an English Anglican clergyman. His liberal tendencies led to conflict with traditionalist clergy in general and the supporters of Tractarianism during the years he taught in Oxford which coincided with a period of rapid social change and heightened political tensions, his support for the campaign for the admission of non-Anglicans to Oxford and Cambridge Universities was unpopular at the time and led to serious protests when he was nominated to the Regius Professorship of Divinity two years later. His election as Bishop of Hereford became a cause celebre in Victorian religious controversies because it raised questions about the royal prerogative in the appointment of bishops and the role of the prime minister, he administered the diocese with tolerance and charity without being involved in any further controversy for nearly twenty years. He was born in Barbados, where his father was colonel of militia, on Good Friday in 1793, was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, he took his B.
A. degree in 1813 with first-class honours in both classics and mathematics and in the following year, he obtained the chancellor's prize for a Latin essay. Shortly afterwards, he was elected a fellow of Oriel College. Election to these fellowships was by special examination intended to select the best possible minds and Hampden became a member of the group known as the "Noetics" who were Whigs in politics and critical of traditional religious orthodoxy, he most learned of them. John Keble and Thomas Arnold were fellows during this period, he held successively a number of curacies. In 1827 he published Essays on the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity, followed by a volume of Parochial Sermons illustrative of the Importance of the Revelation of God in Jesus Christ. In 1829 Hampden returned to Oxford and in May 1830 became one of the tutors at Oriel where a disagreement about the tutors' duties led to John Henry Newman, Hurrell Froude, Robert Wilberforce being relieved of their duties. Hampden was chosen to deliver the prestigious Bampton Lectures for 1832 in which he attempted to disentangle the original truth of Christianity from accretions and superstitions scholastic philosophy.
His thought was ambiguous. The lectures were dull and while, at the time, some people thought he had committed himself to a heretical view of the Trinity akin to Socinianism and Sabellianism, serious questioning only started after the publication of his Observations on Religious Dissent in 1834 and wide-ranging outrage in 1836 after his nomination to the Regius Professorship of Divinity. In 1833 he moved from a tutorship at Oriel to become Principal of St Mary Hall and in 1834 he was appointed White's Professor of Moral Philosophy without any adverse comment in preference to Newman, it was recognised by everyone that Hampden was a virtuous man who had done much for the undergraduate members of St. Mary Hall; the years 1815–1914 were a time of radical social and political change in which religion played a significant role. Politically the Church of England was overwhelmingly opposed to political reform. At the start of this period, many Anglicans equated the religious well–being of the country as that of their own church while Protestant and Catholic dissidents suffered under discriminatory religious legislation.
The Whig party and its reforming programme relied on the support of Protestant dissidents who saw the parish priest as "the black recruiting–sergeant against us". Feelings ran high between 1825 and 1850. Despite the recent, partial relief afforded by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 non-Anglicans still suffered from serious discrimination; the tensions had been made much worse by the action of 21 of bishops in voting against the reform of Parliament in 1831 while only 3 voted in favour. Had they all voted in favour the Bill would have passed. Oxford and Cambridge Universities played a central role in the Church of England, they were wholly Anglican institutions. At Oxford, students had to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England as part of the admission process, they were the principal nurseries of Anglican clergy and influential in the country in general. The passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 did little to ease the tensions since the widened franchise produced a reforming parliament in which the more radical members had ecclesiastical abuses in their sights as part of a wide-ranging programme.
Many dissenters campaigned for the disestablishment of the Church of England and the Government's decision to merge ten dioceses of the Church of Ireland with their neighbours was seen as a serious threat to the Church of England when carried into effect by the Church Temporalities Act 1833. It was the direct cause of John Keble's famous assize sermon on "National Apostasy" at Oxford the following year and this in its turn led to the Tractarian Movement. By 1834 the tensions between dissenters and churchmen had reached unprecedented levels because the dissenters sensed that the Church of England would cling to its remaining privileges. In the summer of 1834 a bill to abolish subscription on admission to a university or on taking any degree rather than requiring subscription to the 39 Articles of the Church of England was rejected by the House of Lords. Hampden entered the public arena in August by publishing Observations on Religious Dissent in support of the admission of non-Anglicans to Oxford University on the strength of a simple declaration of faith.
So, urged by the Duke of Wellington (recently elected Chan
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). 
