Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Benson, Edward White
BENSON, The Most Rev. Edward White, D.D., Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Metropolitan, son of Edward White Benson, Esq., of Birmingham Heath, and formerly of York, was born near Birmingham in 1829. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was successively Scholar and Fellow, and where he graduated B.A. in 1852, as a First Class in classical honours, and Senior Chancellor's Medallist, obtaining also the place of a Senior Optime in the mathematical tripos. He graduated M.A. in 1855, B.D. in 1862, and D.D. in 1867. He was for some years an assistant master in Rugby school, and he held the head mastership of Wellington College from its first opening in 1858 down to 1872, when he was appointed a Canon Residentiary and Chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, having been a Prebendary of the same cathedral for three years previously. He was a select preacher to the University of Cambridge (1864–71), and to the University of Oxford (1875–76). For several years he was Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Lincoln. In Dec. 1876 he was nominated by the Crown, on the recommendation of the Earl of Beaconsfield, to the newly-founded Bishopric of Truro, and he received episcopal consecration in St. Paul's Cathedral, April 25, 1877. The diocese, which has been taken out of the diocese of Exeter, consists of the county of Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly, and five parishes of Devonshire, constituting the Archdeaconry of Cornwall; with the church of St. Mary, Truro, as a cathedral. During his occupation of the see he began the building of a new cathedral at Truro, of which the outward shell is to cost £90,000, most of that sum having been gathered through the energy of the Bishop. In Dec. 1882 Dr. Benson was appointed by the Crown, on Mr. Gladstone's recommendation, to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, in succession to Dr. Tait. Dr. Benson has published "Sermons preached in Wellington College Chapel," 1859; "Σαλπισει. A memorial Sermon preached after the death of J. P. Lee, first Bishop of Manchester," 1870; "Work, Friendship, Worship," being three sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in 1871; "Boy-Life, its trial, its strength, its fulness. Sundays in Wellington College, 1859–72," Lond. 8vo, 1874; "Singleheart," 1877; and "The Cathedral, its necessary place in the Life and Work of the Church," 1879; besides numerous single sermons; and he is one of the contributors to "The Speaker's Commentary on the Bible." Dr. Benson married, in 1859, Mary, daughter of the late Rev. William Sidgwick, of Skipton, Yorkshire.