Kingsley, Charles 1819-75
English writer

Born at Holne vicarage, Dartmoor, he entered Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1838, and took a classical first in 1842. As curate and then rector (1844) he spent the rest of his life at Eversley in Hampshire. His dramatic poem, The Saint's Tragedy, or The True Story of Elizabeth of Hungary (1848), was followed by Alton Locke (1850) and Yeast (1851), brilliant social novels which had enormous influence at the time. A Christian Socialist, he had thrown himself into various schemes aimed at the improvement of the working classes, and as 'Parson Lot' published an immense number of articles on current topics, especially in the Christian Socialist and Politics for the People. Hypatia (1853) concerns early Christianity in conflict with Greek philosophy in Alexandria, and Westward Ho! (1855) presents a realistic picture of Elizabethan England and the Spanish Main. His later novels include Two Years Ago (1857) and Hereward the Wake (1866). He also wrote a number of popular songs and ballads, including 'Airly Beacon' and 'The Sands of Dee'. He was appointed Professor of Modern History at Cambridge in 1860, but he resigned in 1869 and was appointed canon of Chester. He made a voyage to the West Indies the following year, and was appointed canon of Westminster and chaplain to Queen Victoria. The collected works of this combative, enthusiastic and sympathetic apostle fill 28 volumes (1879-81), and include Glaucus (1855), The Heroes (1856), his children's classic The Water Babies (1863), Town Geology (1872), Prose Idylls (1873) and Health and Education (1874).

Bibliography: S Chitty, The Beast and the Monk (1974)