Fordington

Handley Carr Glyn Moule was the youngest of eight sons of Henry Moule [1801 - 1880] and Mary Mullett Evans and was born in Fordington on the 23rd December 1841. His father a prominent evangelical clergyman and Vicar of St George’s church carried out his baptism on 13th February 1842.

Handley was named after his godfather Augustus Bernard Handley, a great friend of his father’s and Captain in the Army, who had been born in Bombay around 1803 but baptised back in England in Rochester Cathedral in 1810.  Augustus had been ordained under his fathers ministry and became the incumbent of Christ Church, the small Chapel his father built for the soldiers before moving on to Alton Pancras.

His second and third names came from Carr John Glyn, another wealthy friend, also his godfather, who was a champion of the poor, the staunchest of protestants and a loving devotee of the Bible Society who survived until 1896 only 20 months short of his century.

Handley was born into a busy household. His mother Mary, a well educated and devout Christian, loved her children dearly and made sure she spent time with each, so that none felt deprived of affection. Particularly in the early years she constantly played and read to them stories of the day such as “Uncle Toms Cabin”. It was her role to teach them the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic before formally handing them over to their father who apart from some of his elder brothers he taught alongside six to eight paying pupils who came to him in preparation for University.

The pupils would arrive in February and stay until midsummer to return in August until Christmas was at hand. With a constant stream of religious visitors, who came to seminars organised by his father some of whom stayed with them, it was not unusual to have 17 or 18 to cater for.

With such a busy household to run Mary employed a Nurse (Susan Northover from Cerne) to look after the younger children. Handley described her as “the Truest of Dorset Women, our severe but devoted guardian; her whole heart given to us long after she had left their circle”.

Education

On 5th June 1860, at the age of 19, he entered Trinity College Cambridge where he excelled at his studies. He won the Carcus Greek testament prize in 1862, the Browne medal in 1863, was bracketed second classic in 1864, became a Fellow of the University in 1865, and in 1866 obtained a first-class in theology.

Curate at Fordington

From 1865 to 1867 he was an assistant master at Marlborough Grammer School and was then ordained and served at his fathers parish in Fordington as assistant curate. He served there from 1865 to 1873 taking over from his brother Geroge Evans Moule. In 1873 he was elected sub-dean of Trinity College where he remained until 1876 before returning to Fordington as Curate. He maintained for some years his interest in classical studies: so much so that expert teachers of Latin and Greek verse compositions at Cambridge, as they read to their pupils some exquisite rendering of Handley’s which had become part of a coach’s stock-in-trade, would sigh over the thought that such a scholar should be wasted on theology. He remained curate at St George’s Church in Fordington from 1877 until his father’s death in 1880, when the vicarage which had been the family home for over 50 years went to the new encumbant.

In 1880 he published a Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans and was select preacher at Cambridge in the years 1880, 1882, 1891, 1894, 1896, 1899, and 1900, as well as at Oxford in 1895.

First Principal of Ridley Hall

His position as a prominent Evangelical Minister was recognized in 1880 by his election as the first principal of Ridley Hall Theological College, Cambridge, an establishment founded for post-graduate training for the ministry. Moule's influence in this position was great, and he considerably widened his influence by the production of various religious works of a popular kind, among them being Thoughts on Christian Sanctity (1886) and The Secret of the Presence (1901).

Marriage

In September 1881 Handley married a 36 year old lady by the name of Harriet Mary Elliott. She had been born in France and was known by her second name of Mary. She was the daughter of the late Rev Charles Boileau Elliott MA, FRS, FRGS who had died in Geneva on 1 July 1877 at the age of 72. Her father a graduate of Queens College Cambridge initially worked for the East India Company before taking orders and becoming the vicar of Godalming in Surrey in 1833. In 1838 he was appointed as the Rector of Tattingstone near Ipwich an important holding worth £500 a year with a house and 38 acres of glebe.

Chaplain to Queen Victoria

In 1898 Handley was made Honorary Chaplain to Queen Victoria, and in 1901 Chaplain in ordinary to  King Edward VII. The following year he published Outlines of Christian Doctrine. Also in 1899 he was elected to the Norrisian professorship of divinity at Cambridge and as a convinced evangelical minister he represented evangelicals at the Round Table Conference on Holy Communion in 1900.

Bishop of Durham

In 1901 he succeeded B.F.Westcott as Bishop of Durham a position he held until his death in 1920. Although he was a profound scholar, he could speak and write for ordinary people. In 1907 for example he wrote the chapter on Dorchester in Memorials to old Dorset edited by Thomas Perkins & Herbert Pentin Published 1907 (See pages 145-156). He wrote many hymns and poems; and his works include expositions and commentaries on nearly all the Epistles, as well as books on devotion and a down-to-earth work on theology, Outlines of Christian Doctrine.

Handley lived at Auckland Castle Bishop Auckland in the County of Durham and in 1908 chaired the missionary section of the Pan-Anglican Congress and was closely associated with the Keswick Convention.

He died on the 8th May 1920 of pleurisy at the home of his brother Charles (Senior Fellow and President of Corpus Christie College) in Cambridge. Probate shows that he left an estate of £15,905. 11s 0d.

Publications:

Among his numerous works are: Apollo at Pherae (Cambridge, 1865); Poems from Subjects Connected with the Acts of the Apostles (London, 1869); Fordington Sermons (1882); Christianus, a Story of Antioch, and Other Poems (1883); Justifying Righteosness (1885); Thoughts on Union with Christ (1885); Thoughts on the Spiritual Life (1887); The Christian’s Victory over Sin (1887); The New Birth (1888); Outlines of Christian Doctrine (1889); Secret Prayer (1889); The Net and the Deliverance (1889); Veni Creator (1890); The Cup of the Covenant (1890); Daniel: or , the Secret of Continuance (1890); Life in Christ and for Christ (1890); The Oak of Ephrah (1891); At the Holy Communion (1892); Jesus and the Resurrection (1893); Charles Simion (1895); Grace and Godliness (1895); In the House of the Pilgrimage (1896); The Sacrament of Baptism (1896); Prayers and Promises (1896); Philippian Studies (1897); Colossian Studies (1898); Our Prayer-Book (1898); Confession (1899); On the Holy Communion (1899); Our Great High Priest, (1899); Ephesian Studies (1900); The Secret of the Presence, and other Sermons (1900), The Evangelical School in the Church of England (1901), From Sunday to Sunday (1903); Justification by Faith (1903); Temptation and Escape (1903); Imitations and Translations (1904); The School of Suffering (1905); My Brethren and Companions, and other Sermons (1905); Second Epistle to Timothy (1905); Holiness by Faith (1906); Scenes in the Life of our Lord (1907); The High Priestly Prayer: a devotional Commentary on the 17th Chapter of St. John (1907); Christ’s Witness to the Life to Come, and Other Sermons (1908); Faith, its Nature and Work (1909); and Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews (1909). He likewise prepared for The Cambridge Bible the volumes on Romans (Cambridge, 1879), Ephesians (1886), Philippians (1889), and Colossians and Philemon (1893); for The Expositor’s Bible the volume on Romans (London 1894); and for the Cambridge Greek Testament the volume on Philippians (Cambridge, 1897).

Note: Good quality photographs exist of Handley, two at the V&A images collection and one when he was aged about 55 in the Cambridge Antiquarian Society Portrait Collection Ref CAS F58 1896