Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/454

 Hanfstaengl's 'Plates of National Gallery Pictures,' 1901. 3. 'Masterpieces of the Duke of Devonshire's Collection of Pictures,' 1901. 4. 'Reproductions of Drawings by the Old Masters at Chatsworth,' 1902. 5. 'Catalogue of Letters and other Historical Documents in the Library of Welbeck,' 1903.  STUBBS, WILLIAM (1825–1901), historian and bishop successively of Chester and Oxford, was the eldest son of William Morley Stubbs, solicitor, of Knaresborough, and Mary Ann, daughter of William Henlock. He came of such solid yeoman stock that he could amuse himself in later life by working out his line of ancestors among the crown tenants of the forest of Knaresborough as far back as the fourteenth century. He was born on 21 June 1825 in High Street, Knaresborough. In 1832 he went to a school at Knaresborough kept by an old man named Cartwright, and thence in 1839 to Ripon grammar school, where he attracted the attention of Charles Thomas Longley [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, then bishop of Ripon, In 1842 his father died, leaving the widow (who survived till 1884) to face a severe struggle against poverty with her six young children. Shortly afterwards Longley's influence obtained from Dean Gaisford his nomination to a servitorship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he went into residence in April 1844, and took his degree in 1848 with a first in classics and a third in mathematics. At Christ Church he was 'kept at arms length as a servitor,' and is described as 'timid, grateful, feeling his isolation, and possessed of an amazing memory.' His father had taught him to read old charters and deeds, and he now laid the foundations of his historical learning in the college library, where he attracted 'the amused and approving surprise' of the dean by his devotion to such strange studies. Though official good-will refused to break through the tradition which forbade the election of a servitor as a student, he ever remained a 'loyal son of the House.' However, within a few weeks of his degree he was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College, where he resided till 1850. Stubbs had come to Oxford a tory and an evangelical, but tractarian influence soon made him a lifelong high churchman (Visitation Charges, pp. 347–8). In 1848 he was ordained deacon and in 1850 priest by Bishop Wilberforce, and on 27 May 1850 he was presented to the college living of Navestock, near Ongar, in Essex, thereby vacating his fellowship. He remained vicar of Navestock until 1866, performing diligently the work of a country parson, and winning the affection of his flock by his kindliness and geniality. 'I suppose,' he said in later years, ’I knew every toe on every baby in the parish' (, p. 259). In June 1859 he married Catherine, daughter of John Dellar of Navestock, who survived him. She had been mistress of the village school. He had a family of five sons and one daughter.

Stubbs utilised his leisure while a village parson in acquiring such a knowledge of the sources for mediaeval English history as made him the foremost scholar of his generation. He published nothing before 1858, when he issued his 'Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum,' which exhibited in a series of tables the course of episcopal succession in England. Its genesis is described in the autobiographical postscript (lx-xi) to the preface of the second edition (1897). Modest as was its scope, it had kept him busy for ten years. He now began to write more freely. In 1861 came his first edition of a mediæval document, 'De inventione Sanctse Crucis,' and in the same year began his contributions to the ’Archæological Journal' and other occasional papers. Increasing practical duties as a guardian of the poor and a diocesan inspector of schools did not drive him from study. He sometimes had private pupils, among them Henry Parry Liddon [q. v.] and Algernon Charles Swinburne [q. v. Suppl. II]. His appointment by Archbishop Longley in Oct. 1862 as Lambeth librarian gave him access to a great library, hampered by but few routine duties. His learning was known to a few discerning friends, such as Edward Augustus Freeman [q. v. Suppl. I] and later John Richard Green [q. v.]. Public recognition, however, came very slowly. He was anxious to be employed as an editor for the Rolls Series, which had been projected in 1857, but it was not until 1863 that official 'polite obstructiveness' was overcome and the new series