Edward Lee HicksNPG details (23 December 1843 – 14 August 1919) was an eminentAmerican Libraries Anglican priest“Edward Lee Hicks: Bishop of Lincoln, 1910-1919” Neville, G: Carshalton, Honeywood, 1994 and authorAmongst others he wrote: “Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum”, 1874; “Henry Bazely the Oxford Evangelist”, 1886; “Addresses on the Temptation”, 1903;and “Building in Troublous Times”, 1912 > British Library Catalogue accessed 14 May 2009 who served as Bishop of LincolnThe Times, Saturday, 25 June 1910; p. 5; Issue 39308; col B Ecclesiastical Intelligence New Bishop of Lincoln 1910–1919.Diocesan web-site
Life and works Born in Oxford in 1843, Hicks was educated at Magdalen College School and Brasenose College, OxfordThe Times, Friday, 15 June 1866; p. 12; Issue 25525; col C University Intelligence and ordained in 1886.The Times, Tuesday, 26 September 1871; p. 4; Issue 27178; col D Ordinations Oxford After a spell as Fellow and Tutor at Corpus Christi College, OxfordWho was Who 1987-1990: London, A & C Black, 1991 he was Rector of Fenny ComptonParish history before becoming Warden of Hulme Hall in 1886. After this he was a canon residentiary of Manchester Cathedral, then Rural Dean of Salford”The Clergy List” London, Kelly’s, 1913 until his elevation to the episcopate.National Archives He had not been supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury for the post. "I do not think Hicks would do for Lincoln .... " The Archbishop regarded Hicks as a "faddist" who threw "himself eagerly not to say fanatically into any cause which he espouses". But at that time Prime Minister H. H. Asquith was the key figure in episcopal appointments and, influenced by Hicks as a "strong Liberal in politics", recommended him to the Crown for the post at Lincoln.Lambeth Palace Library, Davidson X, has correspondence relating to Hicks being considered for Norwich and Lincoln
During the First World War, unlike other bishops, Hicks did not encourage recruitment to the Forces nor did he condemn Germany. He was peace-loving, and had promoted "an honourable neutrality of Great Britain".Lincoln Diocesan Magazine, September 1914 He was accused of cowardice, and produced a strong reply to his critics showing prescience of what the "Great War" would involve. "Anyone who knows what war means - its stoppage of industry, its heaping up of debt and taxation, its unemployment, its famine, its missing at home, its paralysis of all effective work and expenditure on Social Reform, not to mention the horrible carnage of the battlefield, the agonies of the wounded, the visitations of disease and pestilence that always follow campaigns and battles - will be the last to tax me with cowardice if I confess to a loathing of war."Lincoln Diocesan Magazine, September 1914 During that War, he lost a son, Edwin, in 1917 and gave up part and eventually the whole of his palace, first for the use of Belgian refugees and then to the Red Cross.The Knox Brothers by Penelope Fitzgerald, Macmillan, 1977, p127 and p148 Novelist and biographer Penelope Fitzgerald was his granddaughter.
Classical scholar and epigraphist
After university, Hicks was also much in demand as a classical scholar and epigraphist, contributing to numerous articles and publications, including:
Hicks, E.L. et al., The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, Printed by order of the Trustees of The British Museum, 1874; Hicks, E.L. et al., Illahun, Kahun and Gurob, 1888-1890, D. Nutt, 1891; Hicks, E.L. and W.R. Paton, The inscriptions of Cos, Clarendon Press, 1891; Hicks, E.L. and G.F. Hill, A Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions, Clarendon Press, 1882.
References
Further reading GR Evans, Edward Hicks: Pacifist Bishop at War, Lion Hudson, 2014, JH Fowler, The Life and Letters of Edward Lee Hicks, London: Chroistophers, 1922 Graham Neville, Radical Churchman: Edward Lee Hicks and the New Liberalism, Oxford University Press, 1998,