Daily News (London)/1900/Obituary: Benjamin Cowie

OBITUARY.

THE DEAN OF EXETER.

Dr. Cowie, Dean of Exeter, died in London yesterday morning. He hed been in a poor state of health for some years, and was accustomed to winter on the Continent.

Benjamin Morgan Cowie was born in 1816, and in Burton's Life the author says that he received his early education in Belgium; but as a matter of fact Dr. Cowie was never in that country till he was more than seventy years of age. When he was only eight, however, he was placed by his father at a pension at Passy kept by a Monsieur Savary, and when there he was taught mathematics by two Savoyards, MM. Peix and Sardon, to whose excellent teaching he attributed his success at Cambridge in mathemstical studies under Mr. Hopkins, his tutor. He graduated as a Senior Wrangler at St. John’s College, Cambridge, of which he was a Fellow, in 1839, and in 1841 was admitted to the Diaconate by the Bishop of Ely (Dr. Allen), who advanced him to the priesthood in the following year. In 1844 he became Principal of the Engineers’ College, Putney, and in 1852-56 was Select Preacher at Cambridge, where he was Hulsean Lecturer in 1853 and 1854. In 1856 be was appointed a Minor Canon of St. Paul's—when the College of Minor Canons was a rich and powerful body—and a year later he became Vicar of St. Lawrence, Jewry, both of which appointments he held till 1873, He was also Warburtonian Lecturer at Lincoln's Inn, and one of her Majesty's first Inspectors of Schools from 1857-72, so that he was a great pluralist. Matthew Arnold always spoke of him as getting through an amazing quantity of work without apparent fatigue owing to his singularly methodical habits. In 1872 Mr. Gladstone nominated him to the Deanery of Manchester. He never cared much for Cottonopolis, but he took a leading part in the deliberations of the Convocation of York, of which he was for three years Prolocutor. In 1883, at his own request, Mr. Gladstone translated him to the Deanery of Exeter, where he has passed the latter years of his life in well-deserved repose, wintering generally abroad. He was a splendid reader, a man of abundant humour. His Vicariate of St. Lawrence, Jewry, where, among the choir, were Mr. H. C. Richards, M.P., and Mr. John Kensit, was rendered famous by the series of daily sermons at midday during the first Lambeth Conference by Bishops from all parts of the world. He was fond of City life, and his "Reminiscences of a City Church" made one regret that he had not written more on City antiquities. His "Catalogue of MSS. and Scarce Books in St. John's College, Cambridge," was a labour of love to him; but, perhaps, his most important work was "The Voice of God: Chapters on Foreknowledge, Inspiration, and Prophecy" while of his sermons those on the Atonement, preached before the University of Cambridge, and his "Scripture Difficulties," the subject of his Hulsean Lectures, were the best known. Dr. Cowie was a many-sided man, and the pleasantest of companions. He had shrewd common sense, sound judgment, and a habit of weighing both sides of a question. He got on admirably with the Bishop of Exeter, and he did much to make the Cathedral of the West a centre of diocesan life and work. It was a matter of deep regret to him that when the Church Congress met at Exeter in 1894 he was so unwell that he could do little more than receive his old friends at the Deanery, and he has never been thoroughly himself since the sudden death of his wife in Cornwall some years ago. He was in the Southern Convocation at the last group of Sessions in 1899, before he went abroad, but he was very feeble. He was much pleased with the appointment of his son last year by the Governing Body of Eton Colloge to the Rectory of Clewer.