Richard Cowley Powles (1819–1901), often known as Cowley Powles, was an English cleric, academic and founding headmaster of

Wixenford School Wixenford School, also known as Wixenford Preparatory School and Wixenford-Eversley, was a private preparatory school for boys near Wokingham, founded in 1869. A feeder school for Eton, after it closed in 1934 its former buildings were taken ...

Early life

He was the son of John Diston Powles, and was educated at Helston Grammar School under

Derwent Coleridge Derwent Coleridge (14 September 1800 – 28 March 1883), third son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was a distinguished English scholar and author. Early life Derwent Coleridge was born at Keswick, Cumbria, Keswick, Cumberland, 14 September 1800 ...

. There he met

Charles Kingsley Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the workin ...

, a friend for life. Another friend from Helston was

Charles Alexander Johns Charles Alexander Johns (1811–1874) was a 19th-century United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British botanist and educator who was the author of a long series of popular books on natural history. Early years Charles Alexander Johns w ...

, who gave him instruction as a naturalist. Kingsley and Powles both moved on to

King's College, London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

for a time. Powles matriculated at

Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university. The college was founde ...

in 1838. He became a Fellow of the college in 1842, graduating B.A. in 1845 and M.A. in 1846.

Oxford in the 1840s

Exeter College had an Essay Club in 1839–40, in which Powles and

Richard John King Richard John King (18 January 1818–10 February 1879) was an English antiquarian and scholar of medieval poetry. He is best known as a writer of handbooks. Life He was the eldest son of Richard King and his wife Mary Grace Windeatt, and was born ...

took part, Powles being President. Powles was

President of the Oxford Union Past elected presidents of the Oxford Union are listed below, with their college and the year/term in which they served. ''Iterum'' indicates that a person was serving a second term as president (which is not possible under the current Union rule ...

in 1841. He was ordained deacon in 1843. A witness of most of the course of the

Oxford Movement The Oxford Movement was a theological movement of high-church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the Un ...

, he gave

Sidney Leslie Ollard Sidney Leslie Ollard (1875 – 28 February 1949) was a British Anglican priest, who served as a Canon of Windsor from 1936 to 1948.''Fasti Wyndesorienses'', May 1950. S.L. Ollard. Published by the Dean and Canons of St George's Chapel, Windsor Ca ...

an anecdotal story about

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English Catholic theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet. He was previously an Anglican priest and after his conversion became a cardinal. He was an ...

and ritual: alleging that the Tractarian use of the

mixed chalice In the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist, the mixed chalice is the admixture of emblessed water and emblessed wine. In preparing the sacrament, the priest blesses the water to represent the divine grace of God bestowed during baptism with wa ...

was explained by their severe fasting. In Oxford, a literary and intellectual group arose in the 1840s, to which Powles belonged. It grew around the ''

Oxford and Cambridge Review Oxford () is a cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world; it has buildings in every ...

'', and comprised also

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, and

James Anthony Froude James Anthony Froude ( ; 23 April 1818 – 20 October 1894) was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of ''Fraser's Magazine''. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergym ...

. The ''Review'' is now identified with the periodicals advocating "Tory paternalism". Powles was one of the Oxford supporters, Kingsley and F. D. Maurice too supported as Cambridge graduates. Froude was another close personal friend. He wrote to Powles, complaining of Kingsley's "Chartist" views. Powles collected Kingsley's poems, about which the author was careless. Another friend from this period was John Duke Coleridge. He considered Powles one of his two closest friends.

Later life

On leaving Oxford in 1850, to marry, Powles ran a school, first in Blackheath. This he purchased from George Brown Francis Potticary, an Oxford contemporary who in that year became rector of

Girton, Cambridgeshire Girton is a village and civil parish of about 1,600 households, and 4,500 people, in Cambridgeshire, England. It lies about to the northwest of Cambridge, and is the home of Girton College, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge ...

. Potticary had had the school, at 9 Eliot Place, since 1831. Powles moved it in 1865, as "St Neot's Preparatory School", to Wixenford House, in Kingsley's parish of

Eversley Eversley is a village and civil parish in the Hart District, Hart district of Hampshire, England. The village is located around northeast of Basingstoke and around west of Yateley. The River Blackwater (River Loddon), River Blackwater, and ...

. The Eliot Place school, set up in 1805 by John Potticary, was also the origin of St Piran's, later in

Maidenhead Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England. It lies on the southwestern bank of the River Thames, which at this point forms the border with Buckinghamshire. In the 2021 Census, ...

, where it was moved by Thomas Nunns around 1872, who had bought the school from Powles. The Blackheath school continued under George Valentine. One of his Wixenford pupils,

Albert Victor Baillie Albert Victor Baillie Royal Victorian Order, KCVO, Doctor of Divinity, DD (5 August 1864 – 3 November 1955) was a Church of England clergyman during the first half of the 20th century, ending his career as Dean of Windsor. He was the Reg ...

, called Powles "a genuine educator and a remarkable man", going on to describe his hairstyle, brushed up into two horns over his ears. Kingsley died in 1875. Powles left his school in 1880. He became a prebendary of

Chichester Cathedral Chichester Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Chichester. It is located in Chichester, in West Sussex, England. It was founded as a cathedral in 1075, when the seat of th ...

, where

John Burgon John William Burgon (21 August 1813 – 4 August 1888) was an English Anglican divine who became the Dean of Chichester Cathedral in 1876. He was known during his lifetime for his poetry and his defense of the historicity and Mosaic authorship ...

, an old friend, was the Dean. The school was taken over by Ernest Penrose Arnold, an Oxford graduate in 1874; and it moved to

Wokingham Wokingham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is the main administrative centre of the wider Borough of Wokingham. At the 2021 census the parish had a population of 38,284 and the wider built-up area had a populati ...

Works

Powles edited ''Sermons Preached at St. John's Chapel, St. John's Wood, by the Late Rev. Percy Lousada'' (1860). Percy Martin(g)dale Lousada (c.1823–1859) was an Anglican cleric and photographer. s:Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886/Lousada, Rev. Percy Martindale

Family

Powles married in 1850 Mary Chester, daughter of George Chester.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powles, Richard Cowley 1819 births 1901 deaths Fellows of Exeter College, Oxford Schoolteachers from Cornwall Presidents of the Oxford Union