Biography

Charles Kingsley (1819-75), Canon of Westminster and author, was born on 12 June 1819 at Holne vicarage, Devon, on the eastern edge of Dartmoor. He studied at King's College, London (1836-8), and in October 1838 Kingsley went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge. He secured a first class in classics in 1842, and he was ordained to the curacy of Eversley in Hampshire. Kingsley was appointed to the curacy of Pimperne in Dorset and turned his mind increasingly to the problems of agrarian poverty. In May 1844 Kingsley was invited to return to Eversley as rector, and proceeded to transform a badly neglected parish in what was then a wild country district. His first historical novel, Hypatia, subtitled New Foes with an Old Face, was published in 1853. Kingsley's greatest popular success was the historical novel Westward Ho! (1855). In 1860, Kingsley succeeded Sir James Stephen as regius professor of modern history at Cambridge. His most enduringly popular book was The Water-Babies (1863). Kingsley died at Eversley on 23 January 1875.

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