Life
1787-1863 [var. Whateley]; b. London; ed. privately and Oriel College,
Oxford, BA 1808; fellow of Oriel, 1811-1822; MA 1812; DD, 1825; Historic
Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte (1819), ridiculing Hume; anti-Calvinist
treatise on pre-destination, 1821; ‘Party Feeling and the Matter
of Religion’, Bampton lecturer, 1822; rector of Halesworth, Suffolk,
1822-25; principal of St. Alban’s Hall, 1825-31; believed author
of anti-Erastian Letters on Church of England by an Episcopalian
(1826); Logic (1826), limiting it to deduction only; Rhetoric
(1828); Errors of Romanism (1830); Drummond Professor of Political
Economy, 1829-31; Introductory Lectures in Political Economics
(1831); Easy Lessons on Money Matters (1831); Archbishop of Dublin,
1831-63; supported Emancipation, Poor Law, and National Education reform,
being chair of National Education Board overseeing ‘united national
education’ in Protestant and Catholic schools, from 1831; supported
national education with scriptural writings; maintained good relations
with Daniel Murray, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin; fnd. Whately Chair
of Political Economy, TCD 1832; ardent opponent of transportation, 1832-40;
appointed chairman of commission considering question of Irish poor relief,
1833-36; voted for repeal of religious tests, 1833-53; wrote primers for
Irish schools, 1837-53; edited Thomas Whately [d.1772], Remarks on
the Character of Shakespeare of Macbeth and Richard III [1785] (1839);
opposed Tithe Commutation Act, 1838; condemned William George Ward’s
Ideal of a Christian Church (1844); supported Maynooth Grant, 1845; contrib.
generously to Famine fund, 1847; outspoken critic of evangelism (i.e.,
‘soupers’) during Famine; opposed extended poor law terminating
government responsibility for famine relief and sidelined during Russell
administration, 1847-52; co-fnd. Statistical Society of Dublin, 1847;
Vice-President RIA, 1848; Society for Promoting Scientific Enquiries into
Social Questions (1850); British Association of Belfast (1852), and British
Association in Dublin (1857); fnd. Society for Protection of the rights
of Conscience (1851); Introductory Lectures on the British Constitution
(1854); ed. William Copleston, Remains (1854); ed. Bacon’s
Essays (1856); also Paley’s Moral Philosophy (1859), reflection
his own neo-Paleyite belief in divine governance; and View of Christian
Evidences (1859); published lectures on Scriptural Parables (1857);
said to have had an eccentric manner of arranging his legs; bur. Christ
Church Cathedral; there is a recumbent monument in St. Patrick’s
Cathedral, Dublin, sculpted by Farrell; Nassau Senior, whose economic
ideas he popularised, was a former student; published sermons, 1821-60.
DNB DIH
Criticism
Thomas G. Conway, ‘The Approach to an Irish Poor Law, 1828-33’, Éire-Ireland,
6, 1 (Spring 1971), pp.65-81; Donald Harmon Akenson, A Protestant in
Purgatory: Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin (Hamden, Connecticut:
Archon Books 1981).
Roy Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (London: Penguin 1988), pp.304, 329.
Thomas A. Boylan and Timothy P. Foley, Political Economy and Colonial Ireland, the Propagation and Ideological Function of Economic Discourses in the 19th century (London: Routledge 1991).
Cormac O Grada, Ireland: A New Economic History 1780-1939 (London: Clarendon 1994).
Tadhg Foley, ‘Pirates, Professors, and Political Economy’, Irish Reporter (Third Quarter 1995), pp.6-7.
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Notes
Hyland Catalogue No. 224 lists Richard Whately, Essays [3rd series]
on the Errors of Romanism (rev. ed.1856), xxi+230pp. [Hyland 214]. Essay
on the Omission of Creeds ... (1831); thoughts on Christian Moral-Instruction
(1854); E. Jane Whately, Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, DD,
2 vols. (1866), ports
"Epitaph on Archbishop Whateley" by Samuel Ferguson,
reprinted in Padraic Colum, ed., Poems of Samuel Ferguson, (Dublin:
Allen Figgis 1963), Appendix.
For anecdotes of Whately’s taste for riddles see A. P. Graves, To Return to All That: An Autobiography (London: Cape 1930), p.59.
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish literature (1904), under ‘Irish as A Spoken Language’, extract from A Literary History of Ireland, Hyde adds a parenthesis (formerly a footnote) following a comment to the effect that Irish people are dropping their Irish Christian names, and are becoming ashamed of the patrons saints of their own people, ‘This is the direct result of the system pursued by the National Board, which refuses to teach the children anything about Patrick and Brigit, but which is never tired of putting second-hand English models before them. Archbishop Whately, that able and unconventional Englishman, who had so much to do with moulding the system, despite his undoubted sense of humour, saw nothing humorous in making the children learn to repeat such verses as - ‘I thank the goodness and the grace / Which on my birth have smiled, / And made me in these Christian days, / A happy English child!’ (JMC, Vol. 4, pp.1609-10).
D. J. O'Donoghue, Poets of Ireland lists Richard Whately West, a son of Dean West, and brother-in-law of Dowden, with whom there may be a family connection.
In 1832, Whatley removed Tresham Dames Gregg from official office on account of Gregg's support for the extreme Protestant cause.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)