John Keble

John Keble (1792-1866) was an Anglican priest and poet who was one of the founders and leaders of the Oxford Movement. Keble College, Oxford, is named after him.

John’s connection to Sidney Parsons’s family, which is the main subject of these pages, is through his maternal grandmother’s family, the Holbrows of Gloucestershire, and their link by marriage to Isaac Gale of Malmesbury.

John Keble was widely respected as one of the founders of the Oxford Movement which sought to defend the Church of England from government interference and to restore its ancient traditions which had previously been abandoned for being too “papist”. It was John’s 1833 sermon entitled National Apostasy which sparked the movement.

Keble College was founded after a group of John Keble’s friends in the movement met on the day of his funeral and decided to create a college in his memory. One of their main aims was to provide for students who could not afford to attend traditional colleges. A fund was established and the College was built. It was granted a charter by Queen Victoria on the 6^th of June 1870 and it was formally incorporated into Oxford University on the 18^th of April 1871.

John Keble’s father was for fifty years vicar of Coln Saint Aldwyn’s in Gloucestershire and lived nearby in Fairford. John was born in April 1792 and he and his younger brother Thomas were educated at home before going to Oxford. John won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College and was awarded double first-class honours in both Latin and mathematics. He became a fellow of Oriel College and was a tutor and examiner for the university. While at Oxford he became a close friend of John Coleridge, the nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In 1823 John’s mother died and he returned to Fairford to live with his father and his sisters. While there he wrote The Christian Year, a book of poems for each Sunday and feast day of the year. The book was published anonymously in 1827 but its authorship soon became known and John was appointed professor of poetry at Oxford.

John’s contemporaries described him as a shy, social awkward, retiring man who was totally without ambition. But in 1833 he delivered a sermon on “National Apostasy” which made him famous and gave an important boost to the emerging Oxford Movement which argued for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions and beliefs into Anglican liturgy and theology.

John’s father died in Fairford in 1835 and his sister retired to nearby Coln where her father had been vicar. In October of that same year John married his brother Thomas’s wife’s younger sister Charlotte Clarke. Thomas was the vicar of Bisley and he conducted John and Charlotte’s wedding there. Charlotte and Elizabeth, Thomas’s wife, were daughters of the late Rev. George Clarke who had been rector of Meysey Hampton until his death in 1809. Meysey Hampton is about two miles from Fairford.

The vicarage of Hursley, near Winchester in Hampshire, had become vacant and it was offered to John. He and Charlotte settled there and he became the parish priest. They stayed there for the rest of their lives. John continued to write poems, hymns, and sermons, and several of his works became very influential within the Anglican community. John’s first book The Christian Year continued to generate large profits for many years allowing him to fund major renovations to his church in Hursley.

John and Charlotte had no children.

John Keble died on the 29^th of March 1866 in a Bournemouth hotel where he and his wife had gone to try and recover their declining health. She died in the same hotel just over a month later. They were both buried in Hursley.

There is a bust of John Keble in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner.

John Keble’s ancestors

Parents

John Keble was the vicar of Coln St Aldwyns, near Fairford in Goucestershire for more than 50 years.
Sarah Maule was born in Ringwood in Hampshire where her father was the parish priest.

Grandparents

John Keble was a prominent maltster who moved to Fairford from the Lechlade area and built Keble House.
Elizabeth, John’s wife.

John Maule was the parish priest in Ringwood from 1750 until his death in 1758.
Elizabeth Holbrow who came from Uley in Gloucestershire. Her family, the Holbrows, were clothiers.

Great Grandparents

Unknown — the father of John Keble.
Unknown — the mother of John Keble.

Unknown — the father of John Keble’s wife Elizabeth.
Unknown — the mother of John Keble’s wife Elizabeth.

John Maule from Ecton in Northamptonshire whose daughter Elizabeth married Sir Thomas Mackworth, Bart.
Sarah, John’s wife.

William Holbrow, a wealthy clothier, became High Sheriff of Gloucestershire.
Ann Gale whose father was one of the Gales of Malmesbury and whose mother’s uncle was Sir Thomas Estcourt.

Return to Sidney Parsons’ Ancestors

You are free to make use of the information in these web pages in any way that you wish but please be aware that the author, Mike Parsons, is unable to accept respsonsibility for any errors or omissions.

Mike can be contacted at parsonspublic@gmail.com

The information in these web pages comes from a number of sources including: Hampshire County Records Office, Somerset Heritage Centre; Dorset County Records Office; Southampton City Archives; the General Register Office; several on-line newspaper archives; several on-line transcriptions of Parish Register Entries; and several on-line indexes of births, marriages and deaths. The research has also been guided at times by the published work of others, both on-line and in the form of printed books, and by information from personal correspondence with other researchers, for all of which thanks are given. However, all of the information in these web pages has been independently verified by the author from original sources, facimile copies, or, in the case of a few parish register entries, transcriptions published by on-line genealogy sites. The author is aware that some other researchers have in some cases drawn different conclusions and have published information which is at variance from that shown in these web pages.