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 a handsome fortune, and left his widow and his only son, Edward White Benson the elder, in reduced circumstances. Edward White Benson, the archishop's father, set up as a chemical manufacturer in Birmingham, where the archbishop was born on 14 July 1829. The house was 72 Lombard Street. In 1843 the archbishop's father died, his end being hastened by the failure of his business; and the widow, a sister of Sir Thomas Baker of Manchester, who lived on in a small house in the closed works upon an annuity given her by her husband's partners, had much difficulty to provide for her six surviving children.

At the age of eleven the boy entered King Edward's School, Birmingham, then under the government of [q. v.], an inspiring teacher, to whom Benson used to say that he owed all that he ever was or should be. Bishop Westcott was at that time one of the senior boys in the school. Another pupil, [q. v.], who was nearer his own age, became Benson's most intimate friend, and remained so to the end of his life. A devout and imaginative boy, he had already conceived the hope of entering holy orders. He read with eagerness the 'Tracts for the Times' and other ecclesiastical literature, and secretly recited, with Lightfoot or other select associates, the Latin Plours in a little oratory which he fitted up in the dismantled works. A tempting commercial prospect was refused, and in 1848 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a subsizar.

His mother died suddenly in 1850, exhausted by the strain of nursing her children through typhus fever, the eldest girl having died a few hours before. Her annuity ending with her life, the family was left almost penniless. Friends came to their aid, but it is a proof of the strength of Benson's early convictions that he would not allow his youngest brother to become dependent upon his uncle at Manchester, who was a unitarian, lest he should be drawn away from the faith of the church. Benson was himself set free from pecuniary anxiety by the generosity of Francis Martin, the bursar of Trinity, who became a second father to him. His declamation at Trinity in praise of George Herbert made a profound impression upon those who heard or read it. He graduated B.A. in 1852, being placed eighth in the classical tripos, and a senior optime in mathematics; he was also senior chancellor's medallist.

In that autumn he went as a master to Rugby, under [q. v. Suppl.], where he lived in the house of his cousin, Mrs. Sidgwick, widow of the Rev. William Sidgwick of Skipton, Yorkshire, and mother of [q. v. Suppl.] Next year he was elected fellow of Trinity, but he never resided upon his fellowship. He was ordained deacon in 1853 by his old master, Lee, then bishop of Manchester, and priest at Ely in 1867. In 1859 he was married to Mrs. Sidgwick's daughter Mary, to whom he had been attached from her early childhood.

In January of that year, 1859, Benson had entered upon his first independent duties. His health had suffered at Rugby. He had been thinking of taking work at Cambridge. At one moment he was on the point of becoming domestic chaplain to Tait, bishop of London, afterwards archbishop. Just then Wellington College was being constituted, and on the recommendation of Dr. Temple, who had succeeded Goulburn at Rugby, and who there formed a lifelong friendship with Benson, the prince consort offered Benson the mastership. Here he had the first opportunity of exercising his peculiarly constructive genius. Wellington College was his creation. From the moment of his acceptance of the mastership of the still unborn institution he began to remodel the scheme that had been set before him, the prince consort supporting him at every point until his death in 1861. Instead of the charity school for a few sons of officers which it would otherwise have been, he made Wellington College one of the great public schools of England. He persuaded the governor's to put the whole control of the school into the hands of the master, instead of entrusting the commissariat to a steward and secretary responsible only to themselves. His whole soul was put into every detail of the arrangements. The chapel especially—which was dedicated to the Holy Ghost—and its services had the deepest interest for him. To plan how the boys were to be seated, the windows decorated according to a careful scheme, the capitals carved with plants native to the district, gave him delightful employment. He drew up a characteristic book of hymns and introits for use in the chapel. Though severely simple, there was an impression of care about the services which sometimes gave strangers the feeling that the college was very 'high church.' One such visitor wrote to the governors to complain of the extreme sermon he had heard; it turned out that the sermon on the occasion was preached by Benson's neighbour and congenial friend, Charles Kingsley.

The boys with whom he began were diffi-