Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/501

 diocese comprising Devon and Cornwall, he visited most of the parishes, in many of which a bishop had not been seen for long, but he early felt the need of the division of the diocese. The donation by Lady Rolle in 1875 of 40,000l. gave a great impetus to the scheme, and in 1876 a bill to create the diocese of Truro was passed see Benson, Edwakd White, Suppl. I].

In 1874 he was petitioned by the chancellor of the diocese to inquire into the legality of the erection of a new reredos in the cathedral. As visitor and ordinary he gave sentence for its removal. The dean of arches reversed this judgment, but the privy council on appeal reversed the judgment of the court of arches, in so far as it limited the bishop's visitatorial jurisdiction over the cathedral, but maintained it on two points, viz. the non-requirement of a faculty and the legality of the figures. When a similar question was raised in regard to the reredos in St. Paul's, April 1888, by the Church Association, circumstances had changed. The privy council had ruled there was nothing illegal in the figures, and the legislature had granted to the bishops discretionary power to stop proceedings. Accordingly, as bishop of London he refused to allow the case to proceed. His speeches while bishop of Exeter, in the House of Lords on the university tests bill (1870) and the bill for opening churchyards to non-conformists (1880), showed him true to his liberal principles. While bishop of Exeter he became a member of the governing body of Rugby School, and for the last ten years of his life was its chairman. He was also governor of Sherborne School. In 1884 he delivered at Oxford the Bampton lectures, on 'the relation between religion and science.' Among his hearers on one occasion were Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning ; many younger men who heard him never forgot the impression which he made, partly by his vigorous arguments and still more by his native strength, simplicity, and sincerity.

On 25 Feb. 1885 he was called to the see of London. A public meeting in the Guildhall at Exeter and the testimonials that emanated from it proved how entirely the bishop had won his way. The clergy of the diocese, who had protested against his election in 1869, almost unanimously signed a memorial of regret at his departure. He was enthroned in St. Paul's in April 1885. He threw himself with his accustomed vigour into the work of the diocese and into all the great social questions of the day. In accordance with his views on self-government he introduced the plan of allowing the clergy to elect their own rural deans. Besides delivering his episcopal charges, he gave addresses in turn at the several ruridecanal chapters. He took such subjects as 'relation of the church to the poor in London,' 'the growth of scepticism and indifference,' and in 1892 he dealt with the archbishop's judgment in the bishop of Lincoln's case. On this case, with four other bishops, he had been assessor to Archbishop Benson [q. v. Suppl. I]. In 1887 it was mainly due to his energy and advocacy that the church's memorial of Queen Victoria's jubilee took the permanent form of the Church House now in Dean's Yard, Westminster. The Pluralities Act amendment bill was carried through the House of Lords by the bishop, and became an Act of Parliament in 1885. The Clergy Discipline Act passed in 1892 owed much to his efforts. In 1888 he was a member of the royal commission on education presided over by Lord Cross, and never missed a sitting. In the slimmer of 1889 he tendered evidence of great value before a commission presided over by Lord Selborne with reference to a teaching university for London, and before the secondary education commission of 1894, of which Mr. James Bryce was chairman. While bishop of London, he gave land to enlarge Bishop's Park, Fulham, which was opened by the chairman of the London county council on 2 Dec. 1893. Later, when archbishop of Canterbury, he handed over a field adjoining Lambeth Palace for a recreation ground. This was put in order by the London county council and opened on 24 Oct. 1901.

At the time of the dockers' strike in the autumn of 1889 the bishop of London's return to town from his holiday led the lord mayor to intervene and form the conciliation committee by means of which an arrangement was ultimately reached.

At the request of senator G. F. Hall of Massachusetts, backed by the principal Antiquarian Societies of America, the bishop had agreed to hand over to U.S.A. the 'Bradford MS.,' incorrectly termed the 'Log of the Mayflower,' then in the library of Fulham Palace. Bishop Creighton carried out the wish of his predecessor by delivering the MS. to the American ambassador on 29 May 1897.

In October 1896 he was nominated by Lord Salisbury to the archbishopric of Canterbury. A meeting took place at the Guildhall on 18 Jan. 1897 to commemorate his London episcopate, when the lord