The son of a naval captain, Liddon was born on 20 August 1829 at
North Stoneham, near
Eastleigh,
Hampshire. He was educated at
King's College School, and at
Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated, taking a second class, in 1850. As vice principal of the
theological college at
Cuddesdon (1854–1859) he wielded considerable influence, and, on returning to Oxford as vice-principal of
St Edmund Hall, became a force among the undergraduates, exercising his influence in opposition to the liberal reaction against
Tractarianism, which had set in after
John Henry Newman's conversion to Catholicism in 1845. In 1864,
Walter Kerr Hamilton, the
Bishop of Salisbury, whose examining chaplain Liddon had been, appointed him
prebendary of
Salisbury Cathedral. In 1866, he delivered his
Bampton Lectures on the doctrine of the
divinity of Christ, published as
The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (1867). From that time his fame as a preacher was established. In 1870, he was made canon of
St Paul's Cathedral, London. He had before this published
Some Words for God against the scepticism of the day. His preaching at St Paul's soon attracted vast crowds. The afternoon sermon, which fell to the canon in residence, had usually been delivered in the choir, but soon after Liddon's appointment it became necessary to preach the sermon under the dome, where from 3000 to 4000 persons used to gather to hear him. Liddon was praised for grasp of his subject, clarity and lucidity, use of illustration, vividness of imagination, elegance of diction, and sympathy with the intellectual position of those whom he addressed. In the arrangement of his material, he is thought to have imitated the French preachers of the age of
Louis XIV. In 1870, Liddon had also been made
Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at
Oxford. The combination of the two appointments gave him extensive influence over the
Church of England. With
Dean Church he restored the influence of the Tractarian school, and he succeeded in popularising the opinions which, in the hands of
Edward Bouverie Pusey and
John Keble, had appealed to thinkers and scholars. He opposed the
Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 (
37 & 38 Vict. c. 85), and denounced the
Bulgarian atrocities of 1876. In 1882, he resigned his professorship and travelled in
Palestine and
Egypt; and showed his interest in the
Old Catholic movement by visiting
Döllinger at
Munich. In 1886, he became chancellor of St Paul's, and declined more than one offer of a bishopric. Liddon was a friend of
Lewis Carroll, who accompanied him on a trip to Moscow where Liddon made approaches to leading
Russian Orthodox clergy, seeking closer links between them and the
Church of England. He died on 9 September 1890, at the height of his reputation, having nearly completed a biography of Pusey, whom he admired; this work was completed after his death by
John Octavius Johnston and
Robert Wilson. According to the
Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Liddon's influence during his life was due to his personal fascination and his pulpit oratory rather than to his intellect. As a theologian his outlook was old-fashioned; to the last he maintained the narrowly orthodox standpoint of Pusey and Keble, in opposition to modernist thought and scholarship. The publication in 1889 of
Lux Mundi edited by
Charles Gore, a series of essays attempting to harmonise
Anglican Catholic doctrine with modern thought, showed that even at
Pusey House, established as the citadel of Puseyism at Oxford, the principles of Pusey were being departed from. He was the last of the classical pulpit orators of the English Church, the last great popular exponent of the traditional Anglican orthodoxy, with the exception of
John Charles Ryle (1816-1900), the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool (1880-1900). Liddon is buried in the Chapel of the
Order of the British Empire in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, close to the grave of
Henry Hart Milman. ==Works==