William Howley (1828-1848) was tutor to the Prince of Orange (afterwards William II. of Holland) then successively Regius Professor of Divinity of Oxford, Bishop of London, 1813, and archbishop, 1823. He played a prominent part in politics and state ceremonials and marked the transition between the new régime, and the old princely days of the archbishoprics.
John Bird Sumner (1848-1862) was brother of Dr. C. Sumner, Bishop of Winchester. In 1823 he was appointed Bishop of Chester, and in 1848 was promoted to the See of Canterbury. He published a large number of works, and by his activity and simplicity of life is “remembered everywhere as realizing that ideal of the Apostolic ministry which he had traced in his earliest and most popular work.”[3]
Charles Thomas Longley (1862-1868) was the son of a Recorder of Rochester. In 1836 he was consecrated the first bishop of the newly founded See of Ripon, translated to Durham in 1856, became Archbishop of York in 1860, and in 1862 was transferred to Canterbury. Perhaps the most memorable incidents in a memorable career are the Pan-Anglican Synod held at Lambeth in 1867, and his establishment of the Diocesan Society for Church Building.
Archibald Campbell Tait (1868-1882) was son of Craufurd Tait, Esq., a Scots attorney. He succeeded Arnold as Master of Rugby in 1842, and became Dean of Carlisle in 1850. He presided over the Pan-Anglican Synod in 1867, and in 1868 succeeded to the archbishopric. “Memorials of Catherine and Craufurd Tait” is a book so well known that even the barest sketch of his career here would be superfluous.
Edward White Benson (1882-1896), son of Edward White Benson, Esq., of Birmingham Heath, was a master of Rugby. He was Head Master of Wellington from 1858 to 1872, Prebendary and Chancellor of Lincoln in 1872, was consecrated the first bishop of the newly created See of Truro in 1877, and translated to Canterbury in 1883. He was buried in the Cathedral on October 16th, 1896, in a secluded corner of the north aisle, immediately under the north-west tower, the first archbishop who was interred in the cathedral of the metropolitan see since Reginald Pole in 1558.
Frederick Temple (1896- ), the present archbishop, is son of the late Major Octavius Temple. He was Head Master of Rugby, 1858 to 1869, consecrated the sixty-first Bishop of Exeter in 1869, translated to London in 1885, and to Canterbury in 1896. His share in the famous “Essays and Reviews,” and the many active works he has instituted, are too well known to need comment.
