Great Victorian lives [electronic resource] : an era in obituaries /
Sanders, Andrew,1946-
Times Newspapers Limited.
Credo Reference (Firm)
London [Eng.] : Times Books,
2007
The Times has recorded notable deaths from its beginnings (as The Daily Universal Register) in 1785, and by the middle of the 19th century obituaries were established as one of the glories of the paper. There was no attempt at comprehensive coverage, and nothing like the daily obituary page of modern times, but under the 36-year editorship of John Thadeus Delane (1841-77) the paper began to respond to the deaths of significant national and international figures in a style - and on a scale - that none of its rivals could match. Great Victorian Lives brings together obituaries from the Times of Delane and his successors, and shows how some of the leading personalities of the 19th century were viewed by a paper that was itself one of the defining institutions of the age.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Consists of obituaries appearing in The Times from the mid-19th century of well-known people, mostly British.
Introduction / Ian Brunskill, General Editor (Obituaries Editor of The Times) -- Introduction / Andrew Sanders, Editor -- Thomas Arnold, Pioneer educator and historian: 'A death more to be mourned as a public loss . . . could scarcely have occurred.' 15 June 1842 -- Felix Mendelssohn, Composer: 'He will be lamented wherever his name was known or his art be loved.' 4 November 1847 -- George Stephenson, Inventor and engineer: The 'Father of Railways.' 12 August 1848 -- William Wordsworth, Poet: 'Few poets have exercised greater influence in his own country.' 23 April 1850 -- Sir Robert Peel, Politician: 'One of the most sagacious statesmen that England ever produced.' 2 July 1850 -- J. M. W. Turner, R. A., Artist: 'Mastering every mode of expression, combining scientific labour with an air of negligent profusion.' 19 December 1851 -- Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Engineer: 'born an engineer.' 15 September 1859 -- Robert Stephenson, Engineer: 'His heart was worthy of his head.' 12 October 1859 -- William Makepeace Thackeray, Novelist and humourist: 'He . . . shrouded an over tender heart in a transparent veil of cynicism.' 24 December 1863 -- Nicholas, Cardinal Wiseman, First Archbishop of Westminster: 'the only [English Roman Catholic] who had earned for himself a wide and lasting reputation for ability and learning.' 15 February 1865 -- Abraham Lincoln, American statesman: 'a singular depth of insight.' 15 April 1865 -- Lord Palmerston, Statesman: 'There was never a statesman who more truly represented England.' 18 October 1865 -- Michael Faraday, Natural scientist: 'Disinterested zeal and lofty purity of life.' 25 August 1867 -- Charles Dickens, Novelist: 'There was always a lesson beneath his mirth.' 9 June 1870 -- General Robert E. Lee, American soldier: 'one of the noblest soldiers who have ever drawn a sword in a cause which they believed just.' 12 October 1870 -- Charles Babbage, F. R. S., Mathematician: 'The Father of the Computer.' 18 October 1871 -- Emperor Napoleon III, Emperor of the French: 'History will find much to reproach him with, but it is certain his contemporaries have been very unjust to him.' 9 January 1873 -- William Charles Macready, Actor: 'A deep and subtle insight into the shades and peculiarities of character.' 27 April 1873 -- David Livingstone, Missionary and explorer: 'Fallen in the cause of civilization and progress.' 1 May 1873 -- John Stuart Mill, Philosopher and political theorist: 'the most candid of controversialists.'8 May 1873 --
Sir Edwin Landseer, Painter: 'His paintings are known . . . through the length and breadth of the land.' 1 October 1873 -- Harriet Martineau, Social and economic critic and novelist: 'A great new light has arisen among English women.' 27 June 1876 -- Sir Titus Salt, Industrialist and philanthropist: 'He was not unmindful of his more public obligations.' 29 December 1876 -- William Henry Fox Talbot, Pioneer photographer: 'The new art, which has since been named photography.' 17 September 1877 -- Pope Pius IX, Pope: 'No man of the present generation can imagine what frenzy seized the generation of 31 years ago.' 7 February 1878 -- George Gilbert Scott, Architect: 'His hands have been more than full.' 27 March 1878 -- John Thadeus Delane, Editor of The Times: 'The man who worked The Times.' 22 November 1879 -- George Eliot, Novelist: 'A woman of rare and noble endowments, a great figure in our literature.' 22 December 1880 -- Thomas Carlyle, Historian and philosopher: 'A great man of letters, quite as heroic as any of those whom he depicted.' 5 February 1881 -- Benjamin Disraeli, First Earl of Beaconsfield, Statesman and novelist: 'The time will come when you will hear me.' 19 April 1881 -- Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Painter and poet: 'There is in his best work a depth and a subdued glow of colour.' 9 April 1882 -- Charles Darwin, Naturalist: 'One must seek back to Newton or even Copernicus to find a man whose influence on human thought and methods of looking at the universe has been as radical.' 19 April 1882 -- Anthony Trollope, Novelist: 'He was never guilty of the deadly mistake of becoming dull.' 6 December 1882 -- Richard Wagner, Composer: 'A star of the first magnitude . . . his work will have a lasting effect on the art of the present and of the future.' 13 February 1883 -- Karl Marx, Political philosopher and economist: 'An attack on the whole capitalist system.' 14 March 1883 -- Victor Hugo, Poet, dramatist and novelist: 'Perhaps the finest literary spirit that France has ever produced.' 22 May 1885 -- Sir Moses Montefiore, Philanthropist: 'Piety, loyalty, and benevolence.' 28 July 1885 -- Franz Liszt, Composer and pianist: 'Hungary had produced a deep impression on his fancy.' 31 July 1886 -- Matthew Arnold, Poet and essayist: 'To a certain number of readers he has as a poet a place apart; a place in the inmost shrine of their affections.' 15 April 1888 --
George Charles Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, Field-Marshal: 'It was chiefly in relation . . . to the memorable charge of the Light Brigade . . . that Lord Lucan's name became historic.' 10 November 1888 -- Wilkie Collins, Novelist: 'A model of all that is most sensational, most thrilling, and most ingeniously probable in the midst of probability.' 23 September 1889 -- Robert Browning, Poet: 'Browning's muse has been for the lifetime of most educated Englishmen a kind of poetical wheel of fortune giving forth.' 12 December 1889 -- John Henry Newman, Cardinal and theologian: 'Two lines can be forever approaching without falling together, but it is not so when the heart is concerned.' 11 August 1890 -- Charles Bradlaugh, Freethinker and politician: 'He was a remarkable figure of a somewhat obsolete type.' 30 January 1891 -- Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish patriot and politician: 'Broken down under such a load of obloquy and disappointment.' 6 October 1891 -- Thomas Cook, Travel agent: 'The originator of the excursion system.' 18 July 1892 -- Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poet: 'The most brilliant light in English literature.' 6 October 1892 -- Louis (Lajos) Kossuth, Hungarian patriot: 'All lovers of freedom in every country, all admirers of valour, all men who had hearts to sympathize with the misfortunes of patriots mourned when the Hungarian cause was lost.' 20 March 1894 -- Robert Louis Stevenson, Novelist, poet and travel writer: 'Even when he brooded over the physical and metaphysical nightmares . . . the vagaries of his inspirations were invariably kept in check by exquisite taste and sound literary judgment.' 3 December 1894 -- Christina Rossetti, Poet: 'Grace and delicacy combined with a clear and pellucid style.' 29 December 1894 -- T. H. Huxley, Naturalist and President of the Royal Society: 'a power of popular exposition almost unequalled'. 29 June 1895 -- Friedrich Engels, German political philosopher: 'He has seen the grain sown by him burst upward.' 5 August 1895 -- Louis Pasteur, Chemist and microbiologist: 'He surely deserves to be ranked among the greatest benefactors of humanity.' 28 September 1895 -- Lord Leighton, Painter and sculptor: 'He had no predecessors in English art, and leaves no one to succeed him.' 25 January 1896 --
Clara Schumann, Musician: 'The most richly gifted of all female musicians.' 20 May 1896 -- Sir John Everett Millais, Painter: 'No painter of any eminence has been a more general favourite, while preserving his art and refinement.' 13 August 1896 -- William Morris, Craftsman, designer, poet and socialist: 'Only those who are willing to cry in the wilderness will prophesy the artistic millennium.' 3 October 1896 -- Johannes Brahms, Composer: 'One and all of his works have in common the elements of absolute originality and distinction.' 3 April 1897 -- Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Humourist and mathematician: 'His chief title to fame will always rest on those jeux d'esprit which have won him so secure a place in the affections of readers for whom mathematics are . . . the reverse of attractive.' 14 January 1898 -- William Ewart Gladstone, Statesman: 'The first of our regular statesmen who, nurtured in the old r�gime, stepped forth as the spokesman of the new.' 19 May 1898 -- Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Painter: 'He was as original as his art.' 17 June 1898 -- Otto von Bismarck, First Chancellor of Germany: 'One of the rare men who leave indelible marks on the world's history.' 30 June 1898 -- Helen Faucit, Actress: 'She could endow comparatively poor characters with at least temporary vitality.' 31 October 1898 -- Henry Tate, Businessman and philanthropist: 'A thank-offering for a prosperous business career.' 5 December 1899 -- John Ruskin, Art critic: 'The man who . . . woke up the English people to a knowledge of what art really meant.' 20 January 1900 -- Sir Arthur Sullivan, Composer: 'A synonym for music in England.' 22 November 1900 -- Oscar Wilde, Dramatist: 'A paradoxical humour and a perverted outlook on life.' 30 November 1900 -- Dr Barnardo, Philanthropist: 'He professed always to legislate for the future.' 19 September 1905 -- Sir Henry Irving, Actor: 'His greatness lay in his brain, not in his feelings.' 13 October 1905 --
Josephine Butler, Social reformer: 'I love my country. It is because of my great love for her . . . that I will not cease to denounce the crimes committed in her name so long as I have life and breath.' 30 December 1906 -- Lord Kelvin, Scientist and inventor: 'He May be said to have taken all physical science to be his province.' 17 December 1907 -- Florence Nightingale, Reformer of hospital nursing: 'One of the heroines of British history.' 13 August 1910 -- Count Leo Tolstoy, Novelist: 'Both artist and prophet . . . among the most influential writers of his time' 9 November 1910 -- W. S. Gilbert, Dramatist and comic poet: 'He was a fairy down to the waist, but his legs were mortal - and too often he wrote his prose with his legs.' 29 May 1911 -- Octavia Hill, Housing reformer: 'One of the most practical and most energetic of women philanthropists of her day.' 13 August 1912 -- W. G. Grace, Sportsman: 'A masterful personality . . . which . . . made an impression which could never be forgotten.' 23 October 1915 -- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Physician: 'The cause both of justice and humanity.' 17 December 1917 -- Sarah Bernhardt, Actress: 'The French Queen of Tragedy.' 26 March 1923.
The Times has recorded notable deaths from its beginnings (as The Daily Universal Register) in 1785, and by the middle of the 19th century obituaries were established as one of the glories of the paper. There was no attempt at comprehensive coverage, and nothing like the daily obituary page of modern times, but under the 36-year editorship of John Thadeus Delane (1841-77) the paper began to respond to the deaths of significant national and international figures in a style - and on a scale - that none of its rivals could match. Great Victorian Lives brings together obituaries from the Times of Delane and his successors, and shows how some of the leading personalities of the 19th century were viewed by a paper that was itself one of the defining institutions of the age.
Description based on title page of print version.
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