This month we remember an Archbishop of Canterbury's visit to Ireland in the late 19th century.
The photograph shows Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury (1829-1896) on the left on his tour of Ireland in September/October 1896. In the centre is William Conyngham Plunket, fourth Baron Plunket, Archbishop of Dublin (1828-1897) and on the right is William Alexander, Archbishop of Armagh (1824-1911).
On 13th September 1896, Pope Leo XIII had issued the bull ‘Apostolicae curae' which declared Anglican orders null and void. Benson began to work on a reply as he conducted his tour of Ireland, and on his return journey he met William Gladstone at Hawarden on 10th October 1896 to discuss it. He died the following day, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral on 16th October.
Benson was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge. He later taught at Rugby School and served as headmaster of Wellington College, and among his six children were the writers A.C.Benson, E.F.Benson, Nelly Benson and R.H.Benson.
After serving as Bishop of Truro from 1877 he was appointed to Canterbury in 1883. His archiepiscopate saw the famous trial in 1889 of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, who was accused of ritualism, for which Benson revived the archiepiscopal court, which had only sat once since the Reformation. The trial took place in part of Lambeth Palace Library, and this, together with its dubious authority, led William Stubbs, the historian and Bishop of Oxford to describe it not as a court, but as ‘an archbishop sitting in his library'.
