Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Benson, Robert Hugh
BENSON, ROBERT HUGH (1871-1914), Catholic writer and apologist, the fourth son and youngest child of Edward White Benson [q.v.], afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, by his wife, Mary Sidgwick (a second-cousin), was born 18 November 1871 at Wellington College, of which his father was the first head master. In 1872 Edward Benson was appointed chancellor of Lincoln cathedral and removed to Lincoln; in 1877 he became bishop of the new diocese of Truro, and in 1882 archbishop of Canterbury, from which date the Bensons had Lambeth Palace and Addington Court, near Croydon, for their homes. These romantic surroundings ever coloured the imagination of Robert Hugh Benson, and he inherited, and early displayed, a high-strung and dramatically responsive temperament. In 1882 he went to a preparatory school at Clevedon, Somerset, and in 1885 gained a scholarship at Eton, where he stayed till 1889. Not idle, he yet showed no interest in study, nor any remarkable religious sense, but ended by winning the Hervey prize for a poem on Father Damien. At Wren’s collegiate establishment, where he prepared unsuccessfully for a year for the Indian civil service, John Inglesant made a lasting impression on him. In October 1890 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for three years. Here he was only moderately successful in classics, but he began theology, as he had decided to take orders. Wagner, Swedenborg, mesmerism, and climbing in the Alps were among his interests.
Prepared for the diaconate by Charles John Vaughan, dean of Llandaff, Benson was ordained deacon in 1894, not without a sharp mental struggle due, seemingly, to a fear of the irrevocable. After a retreat in which Fr. Basil Maturin [q.v.], still an Anglican, gave him much spiritual and intellectual help, he was ordained priest in the Church of England (1895), and till the autumn of 1896 he worked in the Eton mission at Hackney Wick among poor people who loved him more than he liked them. After his father’s death in October 1896 he went to Egypt, whence Anglicanism ‘seemed provincial’. From May 1897 till June 1898 he was curate at Kemsing, near Sevenoaks, but fled, for discipline, to the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, Yorkshire. Benson’s views about the sacraments developed fast, but some lectures by Canon (afterwards Bishop) Gore unsettled him: he began to see no alternative but authority or scepticism.
In 1903 Benson returned to his home and in September of that year was received into the Roman communion at Woodchester, Gloucestershire. He had already written The Light Invisible, semi-mystical fiction (1903); in 1904 appeared By What Authority?, a vivid story of the Elizabethan religious revolution. The months from November 1903 to June 1904 were spent at San Silvestro, Rome, and, after ordination, he returned to England, and at Llandaff House, Cambridge, read theology and wrote The King’s Achievement (1905) on Henry VIII, The Queen’s Tragedy (1906) on Mary Tudor, and The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary (1906), fiction disguised as history, being an account of a hermit in Henry VI’s reign. He migrated in 1905 to the Rectory, Cambridge, and there wrote novels of modern life: The Sentimentalists (1906), The Conventionalists (1908)—studies of rather abnormal, and also of very average, temperaments; A Mirror of Shalott (1907), The Papers of a Pariah (1907)—studies of catholic ritual as from without; and The Lord of the World (1907), a sensational description of the coming of Anti-Christ. Lesser works of this period are A City set on an Hill (1904) and An Alphabet of Saints (1905).
Benson bought and quaintly adorned an old house at Hare Street, Buntingford, Hertfordshire, where he lived from 1908 till his death, carving, embroidering, gardening, entertaining friends, and writing. The books belonging to this period are: The Necromancers (1909) on spiritualism, A Winnowing (1910), None other Gods (1910), The Coward (1912), Come Rack, Come Rope (1912), An Average Man (1913), Oddsfish (1914) on Charles II, Initiation (1914) a study of pain, and Loneliness (1915). He also printed some sermons, The Religion of the Plain Man (1906), Christ in the Church (1911), The Friendship of Christ (1912), and Paradoxes of Catholicism (1918), four short religious plays, some war prayers and poems, and a life of Archbishop Becket (1910), the last partly in collaboration with Mr. Frederick Rolfe, with whom he struck up a tempestuous friendship.
Benson was immensely popular as a preacher, although his manner was violent owing to his stammer, and his voice shrill. He visited Rome and America more than once, preaching and lecturing, had a vast correspondence, and poured forth press articles on innumerable subjects; but he lacked leisure, patience, and health to deal adequately with his materials. By What Authority?, at once well-documented, vigorous, and tender, and None other Gods, with strong characterization, varied incident, and many mystical touches, not superadded to but expressed through the normal, are perhaps the best specimens of his two styles of writing. But his astounding vitality was infused into all his books; the charm of his boyish enthusiasm won him a welcome everywhere; his friendships were fervent; but they were none too lasting when he lost interest, save within his family where the influence of his mother remained paramount with him. Athirst for experience, he used fully every lesson he had learned, yet his piety remained childlike and his faith fierce. In 1911 he was made private chamberlain to Pope Pius X. His death was due to pneumonia supervening on false angina, and to the ruin of his nervous system by feverish yet systematic overwork. He died at Salford 19 October 1914, in the presence of his brother, Arthur Christopher Benson, to whom he was devoted,
[C. C. Martindale, The Life of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, 1916; A. C. Benson, Hugh, 1914; letters; private information.]