Part of : Additional Manuscripts
Rev. Temple Chevallier (1794-1873): son of the Rev. Temple Fiske Chevallier, of Badingham (Suffolk). Educated Pembroke College, Cambridge; B.A. (Second Wrangler) 1817, M.A. 1820, B.D. 1825. Ordained priest 1818. Fellow of Pembroke College 1819; Fellow and Tutor of Catharine Hall (St Catharine's College), Cambridge, 1820. Hulsean lecturer in Divinity 1826 and 1827 (lectures published as
Rev. George Elwes Corrie (1793-1885): son of Rev. John Corrie of Colsterworth (Lincolnshire). Educated Catharine Hall, Cambridge; B.A. 1817, M.A. 1820, B.D. 1831. Ordained priest 1817. Tutor at Catharine Hall until 1849, when he became Master of Jesus College. Norrisian Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge 1838. From 1851 until his death he held the rectory of Newton (Cambridgeshire) in conjunction with the mastership of Jesus.
These letters illustrate the chief interests and preoccupations of Chevallier and Corrie over a period of thirty years. As well as matters of personal and family concern, they cover the affairs of the universities of Durham and Cambridge, and speak of the movements and causes which agitated the Church of England and the diocese of Durham in the mid-19th century.
The letters are an important source for the early history of the University of Durham, commenting on the struggles to secure sufficient endowment, the appointment of staff, the development of the curriculum, choice of textbooks, content of lectures, the founding of the university's observatory, in which Chevallier was instrumental, and many other aspects of the fledgling institution. Cambridge controversies reflected in the letters include the contested election to the chancellorship in 1847, the proposal for a royal commission to enquire into the running of the university in 1850, and quarrels over attempts to introduce examinations for students in divinity. On church affairs, there are comments on moves to reform church endowments, episcopal appointments, the Oxford Movement, and the deplorable (in Corrie's view) consequences of Catholic emancipation. There are also vivid glimpses of some of the pastoral difficulties Chevallier encountered at Esh, where more than half the inhabitants of the parish were Roman Catholics, and Sunday cricket and illicit whisky distilling flourished.
Chronological.
Purchased from Miss Susan Todd, via Cider Press Books, Long Sutton, Somerset, 1976
Open for consultation.
Online catalogue available at
Thorp Correspondence
University of Durham Records
University of Durham Observatory Records
Jesus College, Cambridge, Class R.2, 15 (NRA 39212): George Elwes Corrie's journal of a tour through France to Switzerland