Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Garbett, James

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GARBETT, JAMES (1802–1879), archdeacon of Chichester and professor of poetry at Oxford, born at Hereford in 1802, was eldest son of the Rev. James Garbett (1775–1857), prebendary of Hereford. He passed from the Hereford Cathedral School to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was elected to a scholarship, 15 May 1819. He obtained a first class in classics in 1822, along with Lord Shaftesbury and Sotheron Estcourt, and bore through life a high reputation as a classical scholar. He proceeded B.A. 1822 and M.A. 1825; was fellow of Queen's College, 1824–5; fellow of Brasenose College, 1825–36; tutor, 1827; Hulmeian lecturer in divinity, 1828; junior dean, 1832; and Latin lecturer, 1834. The college living of Clayton-cum-Keymer, Sussex, was conferred on him in 1835, and he held it till his death. Garbett was a representative evangelical, and strongly opposed the tractarian movement at Oxford. In 1842 he was Bampton lecturer, and tried to show the needlessness of tractarian changes. In the same year he was elected professor of poetry, in opposition to Isaac Williams, the tractarian candidate. He was re-elected professor in 1847, and held the post till 1852. Some of his lectures, all delivered in Latin, were published, and illustrate his finished scholarship. He is said to have declined the Ireland professorship of exegesis in 1847. He certainly refused a seat on the university commission in 1853. He explained in a published letter to B. P. Symons, warden of Wadham (London, 1853), that he took the latter step, not because he was unfriendly to the commission, but because he objected to the mode of its appointment. He became a prebendary of Chichester in 1843, and archdeacon of the diocese, in succession to the present Cardinal Manning, in 1851. He died at Brighton on 26 March 1879.

Besides numerous sermons, archidiaconal charges, and controversial letters, issued separately, Garbett was author of the following: 1. ‘An Essay on Warburton's “Divine Legation,” a fellowship probationary exercise,’ Hereford, 1828. 2. ‘Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, being a Vindication of the Church of England from Theological Novelties,’ Garbett's Bampton lectures, 1842, 2 vols. 3. ‘De Rei Poeticæ Idea,’ 1843—lectures delivered as professor of poetry. 4. ‘Parochial Sermons,’ 1843–4, 2 vols. 5. ‘Christ on Earth, in Heaven, and on the Judgment Seat,’ London, 1847. 6. ‘Beatitudes of the Mount in 17 Sermons,’ London, 1854.

[Foster's Alumni Oxon. ii. 506; Guardian for 1879, i. 452, 456, 501, 564; Times, 27 and 28 March 1879; Brit. Mus. Cat.]