John Keble - Keble College

Anglican clergyman and poet, born in Fairford, Gloucestershire, SWC England, UK. He studied at Oxford, was ordained in 1816, and became a college tutor (1818–23) and professor of poetry (1831–41). In 1827 his book of poems on the liturgical calendar, The Christian Year, was widely circulated. His sermon on ‘National apostasy’ (1833) began the Oxford Movement, encouraging a return to High Church ideals, and his circle issued the 90 Tracts for the Times. In 1835 he moved to the Hampshire living of Hursely, where he remained until his death. Keble College, Oxford, was erected in his memory.

John Keble (April 25, 1792 – March 29, 1866) was an English churchman, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, and gave his name to Keble College, Oxford (1870).

He was born in Fairford, Gloucestershire where his father, the Rev. John Keble, was Vicar of Coln St. Aldwyns. He attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford and, after a brilliant academic performance there, became a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and was for some years a tutor and examiner in the University.

Meantime, he had been writing The Christian Year, which appeared in 1827, and met with an almost unparalleled acceptance. Though at first anonymous, its authorship soon became known, with the result that Keble was in 1831 appointed to the Chair of Poetry at Oxford, which he held until 1841. In his essay on "Tractarian Aesthetics and the Romantic Tradition," Gregory Goodwin claims that The Christian Year is "Keble’s greatest contribution to the Oxford Movement and to English literature."

In 1833, his famous sermon on "national apostasy" gave the first impulse to the Oxford Movement, also known as the Tractarian movement.

In 1835, he was appointed Vicar of Hursley, Hampshire, where he settled down to family life and remained for the rest of his life as a parish priest.

In 1846, he published another book of poems, Lyra Innocentium.

Of Keble, John Cousins says, in the 1910 A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature:

The literary position of Keble must mainly rest upon The Christian Year, the object of which was, as described by the author, to bring the thoughts and feelings of the reader into unison with those exemplified in the Prayer Book. Keble was one of the most saintly and unselfish men who ever adorned the Church of England, and, though personally shy and retiring, exercised a vast spiritual influence upon his generation.

Two lives of Keble have been written, by John Taylor Coleridge (1869), and by the Rev. In 1963 Georgina Battiscombe wrote a biography titled John Keble: A Study in Limitations.

Keble College

Keble College, a college of the University of Oxford, was founded in memory of John Keble.