Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goodenough, Edmund

by George Fisher Russell Barker

GOODENOUGH, EDMUND (1786–1845), dean of Wells, youngest son of Samuel Goodenough [q. v.], bishop of Carlisle, by his wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Dr. James Ford, physician extraordinary to Queen Charlotte, was born at Ealing, Middlesex, on 3 April 1785. At an early age he was sent to Westminster School, where in 1797, when only twelve years old, he was elected into college. In 1801 he obtained his election to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took honours in Easter term 1804, and graduated B.A. 1805, M.A. 1807, B.D. 1819, and D.D. 1820. Having taken orders, Goodenough became tutor and censor of Christ Church, and in 1810 was appointed curate of Cowley, Oxford. In 1811 he was chosen by the university as one of the mathematical examiners, and in 1816 filled the office of proctor. In Michaelmas term 1817 he was appointed select preacher to the university, and in the following year was instituted vicar of Warkworth, Northumberland. In 1819 Goodenough was appointed head-master of Westminster School and subalmoner to the king, in succession to Dr. Page. On 23 June 1824 he was made a prebendary of York, on 22 April 1826 a prebendary of Carlisle, and on 1 June 1827 a prebendary of Westminster. In 1828 he retired from the head-mastership, and was succeeded by Dr. Williamson. Towards the end of Goodenough's rule the numbers of the school steadily declined. On 6 Sept. 1831 he was nominated dean of Wells, in the place of the Hon. Henry Ryder, bishop of Lichfield, who succeeded to Goodenough's stall at Westminster. Goodenough was prolocutor of the lower house of convocation for a short time. He died suddenly at Wells, while walking in the fields near his house, on 2 May 1845, aged 59, and was buried in the Lady Chapel of Wells Cathedral, where there is a brass to his memory. He married, on 31 May 1821, Frances, daughter of Samuel Pepys Cockerell of Westbourne House, Paddington, by whom he had James Graham Goodenough [q. v.] and many other children. His widow, dying of cholera at Malaga on 5 Aug. 1855, was buried there. A portrait of Goodenough hangs in the dining-room of the head-master of Westminster School. Goodenough was an excellent scholar, and a man of much general culture. He was elected on the council of the Royal Society in 1828. He published the three following sermons:

1. 'A Sermon [on 1 Cor. xiv. 33] preached at … Lambeth [12 Nov. 1820], at the Consecration of … W. Carey, … Bishop of Exeter,' London, 1821, 4to.
2. 'A Sermon [on Deut. xxxiii. 9] preached … [13 May 1830] at the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy,' &c., London, 1830, 4to.
3. 'A Sermon [on Luke xii. 47 and part of 48] preached in the Abbey Church, Bath [24 Jan. 1832] at the Anniversary Meeting of the Bath Diocesan Association of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,' &c., London, 1832, 8vo.

[Alumni Westmon. (1852), pp. 36, 375–6, 447, 455–6; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. (1831), vi. 254; Annual Register (1845), app. to chron. p. 273; Gent. Mag. (1821), vol. xci. pt. i. p. 562, (1846) new ser. xxv. 101–2, (1855) xliv. 334; Somerset County Herald, 10 and 17 May 1810; Le Neve's Fasti (1854), i. 155, iii. 222, 253, 369, 503; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers (1876), p. 95; Catalogue of Oxford Graduates (1851), pp. 264, 793; Honours Register of the Univ. of Oxford (1883), pp. 26, 132, 193, 198–9; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

G. F. R. B.