Arthur Christopher Benson, (24 April 1862 – 17 June 1925) was an English essayist, poet and academic, and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He wrote the lyrics of Edward Elgar’s '' Coronation Ode'', including the words of the patriotic song "

Land of Hope and Glory "Land of Hope and Glory" is a British patriotic song, with music by Edward Elgar written in 1901 and lyrics by A. C. Benson later added in 1902. Composition The music to which the words of the refrain 'Land of Hope and Glory, &c' below ar ...

" (1902). His literary criticism, poems, and volumes of essays were highly regarded. He was also noted as an author of

ghost stories A ghost story is any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them."Ghost Stories" in Margaret Drabble (ed.), ''Oxford Companion to English Literature''. ...

Early life and family

Benson was born on 24 April 1862 at

Wellington College, Berkshire Wellington College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in the village of Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. Wellington is a registered charity and currently educates roughly 1,200 pupils, between the ages of 13 a ...

as one of six children of Edward White Benson (1829–1896), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 to 1896 and, before that, the first headmaster of the college. His mother,

Mary Sidgwick Benson Mary Benson (née Sidgwick; 1841–1918) was an English hostess of the Victorian era. She was the wife of Revd. Edward Benson, who during their marriage became Archbishop of Canterbury. Their children included several prolific authors and con ...

, was a sister of the philosopher

Henry Sidgwick Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected i ...

. Benson's literary family included his brothers

Edward Frederic Benson Edward Frederic Benson (24 July 1867 – 29 February 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer. Early life E.F. Benson was born at Wellington College in Berkshire, the fifth child of the headma ...

, best remembered for his ''

Mapp and Lucia ''Mapp and Lucia'' is a 1931 comic novel written by E. F. Benson. It is the fourth of six novels in the popular Mapp and Lucia series, about idle women in the 1920s and their struggle for social dominance over their small communities. It bring ...

'' novels, and

Robert Hugh Benson Robert Hugh Benson AFSC KC*SG KGCHS (18 November 1871 – 19 October 1914) was an English Catholic priest and writer. First an Anglican priest, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1903 and ordained therein the next year. He ...

, a priest of the Church of England before converting to Roman Catholicism, who wrote many popular novels. Their sister

Margaret Benson Margaret Benson (16 June 1865 – 13 May 1916) was an English author and Egyptologist best known for her excavation of the Precinct of Mut. Early life and family Margaret was born in 1865 near Reading, England, as one of the six children ...

was an artist, author, and amateur

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religiou ...

. Though exceptionally accomplished, the Benson family met tragic times: a son and daughter died young, while another daughter and Arthur himself suffered from a mental condition that may have been

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...

or manic-depressive

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

, seemingly inherited from their father. None of the children married. Despite his illness, Arthur was to become a distinguished academic and a prolific author. From the ages of 10 to 21, he lived in cathedral closes, first at Lincoln where his father was Chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, and then at

Truro Truro (; kw, Truru) is a cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England. It is Cornwall's county town, sole city and centre for administration, leisure and retail trading. Its population was 18,766 in the 2011 census. People of Truro ...

, where his father was the first Bishop of Truro. He retained a love of church music and ceremony. In 1874 he won a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholars ...

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England * Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States * Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...

from Temple Grove School, a preparatory school in

East Sheen East Sheen, also known as Sheen, is a suburb in south-west London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its long high street has shops, offices, restaurants, cafés, pubs and suburban supermarkets and is also the economic hub for Mortl ...

. In 1881 he went up to

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

, where he was a scholar (King's College had closed scholarships for which only Etonians were eligible) and achieved first-class honours in the Classical

tripos At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...

in 1884.

Career

From 1885 to 1903 Benson taught at Eton, but returned to Cambridge in 1904 as a Fellow of

Magdalene College Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mar ...

to lecture in English Literature. He became president of the college (the Master's deputy) in 1912, and he was Master of Magdalene (head of the college) from December 1915 until his death in 1925. From 1906, he was a governor of Gresham's School. Arthur Christopher Benson, Vanity Fair, 1903-06-04

Arthur Christopher Benson, Vanity Fair, 1903-06-04

Modern development of Magdalene was shaped by Benson, as a generous benefactor with a marked impact on the appearance of the college grounds; he appears in at least 20 inscriptions round the college. In 1930, the new Benson Court was named after him.The colleges and halls - Magdalene
- British History Online. Retrieved 30 March 2010. Benson worked with

Lord Esher Viscount Esher, of Esher in the County of Surrey, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 11 November 1897 for the prominent lawyer and judge William Brett, 1st Baron Esher, upon his retirement as Master of the Rolls ...

in editing the correspondence of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

, which appeared in 1907. His poems and essay volumes, such as ''From a College Window'' and ''The Upton Letters'' (essays in the form of letters) were famous in his time; and he left one of the longest diaries ever written: some four million words. His literary criticisms of

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

, Edward FitzGerald,

Walter Pater Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, art critic and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of the Re ...

and

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

rank among his best work. Benson wrote the lyrics of the '' Coronation Ode'', set to music by Edward Elgar for the 1902 coronation of

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

and Queen Alexandra. It has as its finale one of Britain's best-known patriotic songs, "

". Like his brothers Edward Frederic and Robert Hugh, Benson was noted as an author of

. The bulk of them, in two volumes, ''The Hill of Trouble and Other Stories'' (1903) and ''The Isles of Sunset'' (1904), were written for his pupils as moral allegories. After Arthur's death, Fred Benson found a collection of unpublished ghost stories and included two in a book, ''Basil Netherby'' (1927). The title story was renamed "House at Treheale" and the volume completed by a long piece, "The Uttermost Farthing", but the fate of the other stories is unknown. ''Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories'' (1911, reprinted 1977) collects the contents of ''The Hill of Trouble and Other Stories'' and ''The Isles of Sunset''. Nine of Arthur's ghost stories are included in David Stuart Davies (ed.), ''The Temple of Death: The Ghost Stories of A. C. & R. H. Benson'' (Wordsworth, 2007), together with seven by his brother R. H. Benson, while nine of Arthur's and ten of Robert's appear in ''Ghosts in the House'' (Ash-Tree, 1996) – the contents of the joint collections are similar but not identical.

Views

In ''The Schoolmaster'', Benson summarised his views on education after 18 years' experience at Eton. He criticised a trend he found prevalent in English public schools, to "make the boys good and to make them healthy" to the detriment of their intellectual development. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he founded the Benson Medal in 1916 "in respect of meritorious works in poetry, fiction, history and belles lettres".

Death

A. C. Benson died at the Master's Lodge at Magdalene and was buried at St Giles's Cemetery in Cambridge. A cousin,

James Bethune-Baker James Franklin Bethune-Baker (23 August 1861 – 13 January 1951) was the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge from 1891 to 1935. A Modern Churchman, Bethune-Baker was known for his work on the person and w ...

, is also buried there.

Critical reception

Horror critic R. S. Hadji included Benson's ''Basil Netherby'' on a list of "unjustly neglected" horror books. Sir

Arthur Quiller-Couch Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (; 21 November 186312 May 1944) was a British writer who published using the pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication '' The Oxford Book of English Verse ...

included Benson's poem "The Phoenix" in the first and second editions of ''The'' ''Oxford Book of English Verse''.

Works

*''Men of Might: Studies of Great Characters'', with H. F. W. Tatham, 1892 *''Le Cahier Jaune: Poems'', 1892 *''Poems'', 1893 *''Genealogy of the Family of Benson of Banger House and Northwoods, in the Parish of Ripon and Chapelry of Pateley Bridge'', 1894 *''Lyrics'', 1895 *''Lord Vyet & Other Poems'', 1898 *''Ode in Memory of the Rt. Honble. William Ewart Gladstone'', 1898 *''Thomas Gray'', 1895 *''Essays'', 1896. *''Fasti Etonenses: A Biographical History of Eton'', 1899 *''The Professor: and Other Poems'', 1900 *''The Schoolmaster'', 1902 *''The Upton Letters'', 1905 *''Monnow: An Ode'', 1906 *''The Hill of Trouble and Other Stories'', 1903 *''The Isles of Sunset'', 1904 *''Peace: and Other Poems'', 1905 *''The Gate of Death: A Diary'', 1906 *''From a College Window'', 1906 *''Rossetti'', 1906 *''Walter Pater'', 1906 *''The Thread of Gold'', 1907 *''Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton'', 1907 *''The House of Quiet: An Autobiography'', 1907 *''The Altar Fire'', 1907 *''The Letters of One, a Study in Limitations'', 1907 *''Beside Still Waters'', 1908 *''At Large'', 1908 *''Tennyson'', 1908 *''Until the Evening'', 1909 *''The Poems of A. C. Benson'', 1909 *''The Child of the Dawn'', 1911 *''Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories'', 1911 *''The Leaves of the Tree: Studies in Biography'', 1911 *''Ruskin: A Study in Personality'', 1911 *''The Letters of Queen Victoria'', 1907 *''Thy Rod and Thy Staff'', 1912 *''The Beauty of Life: Being Selections from the Writings of Arthur Christopher Benson'', 1912 *''Joyous Gard'', 1913 *''The Silent Isle'', 1913 *''Along the Road'', 1913 *''Where No Fear Was: A Book About Fear'', 1914 *''The Orchard Pavilion'', 1914 *''Escape and Other Essays'', 1916 *''Meanwhile; A Packet of War Letters'', 1916 *''Father Payne'', 1917 *''Life and Letters of Maggie Benson'', 1920 *''Watersprings'', 1920 *''Hugh: Memoirs of a Brother'', 1920 *''The Reed of Pan; English Renderings of Greek Epigrams and Lyrics'', 1922 *''Magdalene College, Cambridge: A Little View of Its Buildings and History'', 1923 *''Selected Poems'', 1924 *''Chris Gascoyne; An Experiment in Solitude, from the Diaries of John Trevor'', 1924 *''Everybody's Book of the Queen's Dolls' House'', 1924 *''Memories and Friends'', 1924 *''Edward Fitzgerald'', 1925 *''The House of Menerdue'', 1925 *''Rambles and Reflections'', 1926 *''Basil Netherby'', 1926 *''The Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson'', 1926

Reviews of Benson's poetry

*"The Poetry of Mr. A. C. Benson", ''Sewanee Review, Volume 14'' (Sewanee: University of the South, 1906), 110–111, 405–421. *"Poets All", ''The Speaker, Volume 15'', 13 February 1897 (London), 196 *"Mr. Benson's Poems", ''The Literary World, Volume 48'', 3 November 1893 (London: James Clarke & Co.), 329 *"Selected Poetry of Arthur Christopher Benson" (1862–1925) *"A Literary Causerie" in ''The Speaker, Volume 15'', 13 March 1897 (London), 299

References

Citations

Sources

*Edward Hewish Ryle (1925), ''Arthur Christopher Benson as Seen by Some Friends'', London: G. Bell and Sons * *Keith Wilson (1990), "A. C. Benson," Robert Beum, ed., ''Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Essayists, 1880–1960.'' Detroit: Gale, 192–204.

External links

* * * *
Works by A.C. Benson
at

Hathi Trust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

Essays by Arthur Benson
a
Quotidiana.org
* *
Benson, Arthur Christopher (1862–1925)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, Arthur Christopher 1862 births 1925 deaths People educated at Eton College Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Masters of Magdalene College, Cambridge Anglican writers English diarists English essayists English horror writers Ghost story writers Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature English LGBT poets People educated at Temple Grove School British male essayists English male poets Councillors in Cambridgeshire AC English male non-fiction writers People with bipolar disorder