Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Selwyn, William (1806-1875)
SELWYN, WILLIAM (1806–1875), divine, eldest son of William Selwyn (1775-1855) [q. v.], was born in 1806. George Augustus Selwyn (1809–1878) and Sir Charles Jasper Selwyn [q. v.] were his brothers. He was educated under Keate at Eton, where his name appears in upper school fifth form in 1823 (Stapylton, Eton School Lists, 1864, p. 113a). He entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in October 1824. In the following three years in succession he gained Sir William Browne's medal for a Greek ode, and in 1826 carried off all the Browne medals. In the same year he was Craven scholar. He graduated in 1828 as sixth wrangler (being one of the Johnian ‘seven stars’), and also senior classic and first chancellor's medallist. His subsequent degrees were M.A. in 1831, B.D. in 1850, D.D. in 1864.
In March 1829 he was made a fellow of St. John's, in succession to the younger Herschel, and in the same year gained the Norrisian prize. He was ordained deacon by the bishop of Ely in 1829, and priest by the bishop of Rochester in 1831. In 1831 he was presented by the Duke of Rutland to the rectory of Branstone, Leicestershire, which he exchanged in 1846 for the vicarage of Melbourne, Cambridgeshire, in the gift of the dean and chapter of Ely. He held Melbourne till 1853. In 1833 he was made a canon residentiary of Ely, an office which he retained till his death. In 1855 he was elected to the Lady Margaret professorship, beating his chief competitor, Harold Browne, who then held the Norrisian chair, by the casting vote of the chairman. ‘It is Harold the conqueror this time, not William,’ was his remark to his opponent, under the impression that the election had gone the other way. He showed his generous spirit on the occasion by insisting on setting apart out of his own income the yearly sum of 700l., first for the better endowment of the Norrisian professorship during Harold Browne's tenure of it, and after that to accumulate till it should reach the sum of 10,000l., when the money should be devoted to such purposes for furthering the study of theology in Cambridge as the senate, with his own approval, should decide upon. Selwyn lived to see the new divinity school erected with the funds thus raised.
In 1852 he was named a member of the cathedrals commission, and the report of 1854 was understood to be largely his work. He was also the moving cause of the rebuilding of his own college chapel, for which purpose funds had been accumulating under the bequest of a late master. In Michaelmas term 1866, when riding along the Trumpington road, he was thrown from his horse, owing to the carelessness, it was said, of an undergraduate, who was riding on the wrong side of the road. In a copy of Latin elegiacs, dated 20 Nov., which appeared in the ‘Times’ of 15 Dec. 1866, the sufferer apostrophised the ‘juvenum rapidissime’ in lines of mingled humour and pathos. He never wholly recovered from the effects of the fall, and died on 24 April 1875, being buried at Ely on the 29th.
Selwyn married, on 22 Aug. 1832, Juliana Elizabeth, eldest daughter of George Cooke, esq., of Carr House, Doncaster, who survived him, but left no family. In person he was tall and spare, with a strong likeness to the portraits of George Herbert. He had a curiosa felicitas of expression, and was an enthusiastic oarsman.
Besides many letters and sermons, Selwyn published:
- ‘Principles of Cathedral Reform,’ 1840.
- ‘Horæ Hebraicæ.,’ 1848–60.
- ‘Notæ Criticæ in Versionem Septuagintaviralem,’ 1856–8.
- ‘Winfrid, afterwards called Boniface,’ a poem, 1864.
- ‘Waterloo, a Lay of Jubilee,’ 1865.
- ‘Speeches delivered at Cambridge on various occasions,’ 1875 (these last collected and reprinted after his death).
He also edited ‘Origenes contra Celsum,’ bk. i. 1860, bks. i.–iv. 1877; and translated Tennyson's ‘Enoch Arden’ into Latin verse, 1867.
[Article by Dr. J. S. Wood in the Eagle (St. John's College Magazine), 1875, ix. 298–322; Guardian newpaper, 28 April and 5 May 1875; Gent. Mag. 1832, ii. 263; information from Mr. S. Wayland Kershaw, M.A., librarian of Lambeth; personal recollections.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.245
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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