by L. R. Farnell, rev. Rosemary Jann
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Abbott, Edwin Abbott (1838-1926), headmaster and writer, was born at 38 Gloucester Place, Marylebone, Middlesex, on 20 December 1838, the eldest son of Edwin Abbott (1808-1882), headmaster of the Philological School, Marylebone, and his wife, Jane Abbott (1806-1882), a first cousin. Educated at the City of London School under Dr G. F. W. Mortimer, he entered St John's College, Cambridge, as a scholar in 1857, became senior classic and senior chancellor's medallist in 1861, and was elected to a fellowship at his college in 1862. He resigned this position in 1863 on account of his marriage with Mary Elizabeth (1843/4-1919), daughter of Henry Rangeley, landed proprietor and coal owner, of Unstone, Derbyshire. They had one son and one daughter. Abbott was ordained deacon in 1862 and priest in 1863.
Having held teaching appointments at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Clifton College, Abbott was elected in 1865, at the early age of twenty-six, to the headmastership of the City of London School, which he held until his retirement in 1889. The school had already risen greatly in reputation under Abbott's predecessor and teacher, Dr Mortimer; but it was owing to Abbott's inspiration that it won the distinction of providing the highest intellectual training. His greatness as an educator derived partly from his organization of new methods of instruction, partly from his initiation of many innovations in the school curriculum, and partly from what can only be called his genius for teaching. Having a reverence for physical science not often found among the classical scholars of his day, he made an elementary knowledge of chemistry compulsory throughout the upper school. As regards classical instruction, he instilled in his pupils the greatest respect for severe standards of formal scholarship; but he breathed new life into it, being among the first, for instance, to adopt the reformed pronunciation of Latin. Having caught the enthusiasm then prevalent at Cambridge for the study of comparative philology, Abbott provided advanced teaching in the subject for the members of his sixth form, where he introduced his keenest pupils to the study of Sanskrit. More than one of them--notably Professor Cecil Bendall--became eminent Sanskrit scholars.
Abbott's most fruitful innovation in the traditional curriculum was the introduction of English literature as an integral part of form-teaching throughout the school. Every term his sixth form studied a play of Shakespeare as they studied a Greek play, in the hope that the language and soul of one great world would help to interpret the other. His own enthusiasm for great literature inspired the careers of such pupils as Arthur Henry Bullen, Sidney Lee, and others who won fame as English scholars and men of letters. Of all the capacities that he strove to evoke in his pupils, Abbott valued most highly that of the clear expression of serious thought, which he conceived to be the chief result of the Oxford Greats training; and of all his pupils he was perhaps proudest of H. H. Asquith, whom he regarded as its best representative.
A great moral and religious teacher, Abbott had the mark of the spiritual leader in that he could impart to others something of his own inspiration. Without driving or overtaxing his pupils, he made intellectual effort a kind of religion for them; his deep reprobation of intellectual slackness and unveracity was such a spur to them that his sixth form became a most stimulating training ground for eager and receptive spirits. In spite of a frail and delicate physique, Abbott could keep discipline without effort. He was an impressive preacher: in the pulpit he was a bold and original exponent of advanced broad church doctrines. His own university elected him Hulsean lecturer in 1876, and Oxford invited him to be select preacher in 1877. But, next to teaching, Abbott's vocation lay in writing; and it was probably the attraction of complete leisure for literary work, as well as his weariness of administration, which prompted his retirement at the zenith of his reputation and at the comparatively early age of fifty in 1889.
During the active period of his life Abbott produced much. He began to publish in 1870, and his important works include Shakespearean Grammar, in 1870; English Lessons, for English People, in 1871 (written with J. R. Seeley); and How to Write Clearly, in 1872. The English classical author on whom Abbott laboured most was Francis Bacon. In 1877 he published Bacon and Essex to correct the partial judgement of James Spedding of Bacon's action on the occasion of the trial of the earl of Essex. The introduction which accompanied his seventh edition of Bacon's Essays (1886) contains an original and masterly study of Bacon's varied activities and complex character.
More numerous and perhaps more weighty than Abbott's works of secular scholarship are his theological writings. Their range is wide, for they include treatises of textual criticism, showing the most minute and laborious attention to statistical details and to linguistic interpretation (Johannine Vocabulary, 1905; Johannine Grammar, 1906), as well as works of high religious imagination and bold constructive power, such as Philochristus (1878), Onesimus: Memoirs of a Disciple of Paul (1882), and Silanus the Christian (1906). These are striking expositions of the broad church point of view; the first is dedicated to J. R. Seeley. His broad church sympathies also inspired Philomythus (1891), a critique of J. H. Newman's 'Essay on miracles', and The Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman (2 vols., 1892). However, he is most remembered as the author of Flatland, or, A Romance of many Dimensions, published under the pseudonym of A Square in 1884. At once a lesson in higher dimensional geometry, a social satire, and an expression of religious principle, this work gives lasting testimony to Abbott's genius as a teacher and to his literary and moral imagination.
Abbott died of influenza at his home, Wellside, Well Walk, Hampstead, London, on 12 October 1926, and was buried in Hampstead cemetery.
L. R. FARNELL, rev. ROSEMARY JANN
Sources
The Times (13 Oct 1926)
Venn, Alum. Cant.
A. E. Douglas-Smith, The City of London School (1937)
T. F. Banchoff, 'From Flatland to hypergraphics: interacting with higher dimensions', Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 15 (1990), 364-72
R. Jann, 'Abbott's Flatland: scientific imagination and "natural Christianity"', Victorian Studies, 28 (1985), 473-90
J. Smith, L. I. Berkove, and G. A. Baker, 'A grammar of dissent: Flatland, Newman, and the theology of probability', Victorian Studies, 39 (1996), 129-50
private information (1937)
personal knowledge (1937)
b. cert.
m. cert.
d. cert.
CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1926)
Archives
St John Cam., corresp., notebooks, and papers | BL, corresp. with Macmillans, Add. MS 55114
King's AC Cam., letters to Oscar Browning
Likenesses
W. & D. Downey, woodburytype photograph, NPG; repro. in W. Downey and D. Downey, The cabinet portrait gallery (1891), vol. 2
H. von Herkomer, oils, City of London School
J. Russell & Sons, photograph, NPG
Wealth at death
£17,436 14s. 10d.: probate, 1 Dec 1926, CGPLA Eng. & Wales
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