[Archbishop] William Alexander
Life
1824-1911; b. Derry, 3rd child of Rev. Robert Alexander; ed. at
Tunbridge public school; also
Oxford; religious crisis, influenced by Newman and the Oxford Movement;
m. Cecil Frances (née Humphreys), 1850; curate of Upper Fahan and
Strabane; recited ode at installation of Lord Derby as Chancellor of Oxford
in 1853; prize for sacred poem "The Waters of Babylon", 1860;
supported by Matthew Arnold in close contest for Oxford Chair of Poetry,
but was defeated by Sir F. H. Doyle, 1867; elected Bishop of Derry and
Raphoe, 1867; Archbishop of Armagh and [protestant] Primate of All-Ireland
1893 [var. 1896]; last bishop to take up a seat in House of Lords; published
Death of Jacob (1858); Specimens Poetical and Critical (1867);
Lyrics of Life and Light [by WA and others] (1878); St. Augustine’s
Holiday and other Poems (1886); The Finding of the Book (1900);
theological prose works include The Witness of the Psalms of Christ
(1876); Leading Ideas of the Gospels; Redux Crucis
Logics of Light and Life (1878), and Primary Convictions
(NY 1893); retired to Torquay in 1911, where he died; mentioned as part
of Procession in Joyce’s "Cyclops" episode of Ulysses.
CAB DNB JMC TAY FDA OCIL
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Works
The Death of Jacob, a Poem ... To Which are Added, a Few Other Poems
(Oxford: T. & G. Shrimpton 1858), 63pp. 8o.; Victor Hugo as a Poet
[Afternoon Lect. Ser.] (1863, rep. 1964); Specimens Poetical and Critical
(London: for the author 1867), vii, 207pp.; The Witness of the Psalms
to Christ and Christianity [Bampton Lects.] (London: John Murray 1876;
3 enl. edns. 1877, 1878, 1890); Lyrics of Life and Light, by WA and
others (1878); St Augustine’s Holiday (1886); Primary Convictions
(London/NY: [q.p.] 1893); The Finding of the Book and Other Poems
(London: Hodder & Stoughton 1900), xvi, 325pp., 8o.; The Soldier’s
Prayer (London: Skeffington [1900]), 12o.; Our National Church
(London: Nisbet 1906), 63pp.; Selected Poems of William Alexander and
Cecil Frances Alexander, ed. A. P. Graves (London: SPCK 1930), x,
117pp.; Leading Ideas of the Gospel: Five Sermons Preached before the
University of Oxford in 1870-1871 (London: Macmillan & Co. 1871),
viii, 192pp., 8o.; Do., (1872, 1898), xxxi, 334pp.; also T. D.
Morris, Abstract of Archbishop Alexander's 'The Leading Ideas of
the Gospels' ([q.pub.] 1917), p.34[ff], 8o. [incl. in later edns.]; Redux
Crucis Logics of Light and Life (1878); Leading Ideas
of the Gospels; and Primary Convictions (NY 1893).
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- D. P. Moran, 'More Muddle', Field Day Anthology, gen. ed. Seamus Deane (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol 2, p.971 [infra];
- Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1904).
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Notes
Rev.
Alexander Leeper, Historical Handbook of St Patrick’s Cathedral
(1891) relates that lines by Right Rev. W. Alexander, DD, appear on the
pedestal of the Boyd Statue in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, commemorating
a Derry-born officer who drowned at Kingstown harbour trying to rescue
men of the brig Neptune: ‘Safe from the rocks, whence swept the manly
form / The tide’s white rush – the stepping of the storm/Borne with a
public pomp by just decree / Heroic sailor ... Here it is meet for grief
and love to grave / The Christ-taught bravery that died to save / The
life not lost, but found beneath the wave’. The statue is by Farrell.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)