Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was a British author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer.

Upbringing

Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with some Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors belonged to the two traditional English upper-middle class professions: the army and the Church. His great-grandfather, also Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become a bishop; his grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in 1803 while his two sons were hardly more than babies.

Related Topics:
English - Irish - Anglican - Church - Bishop - Army - Captain - 1803

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The elder of these—yet another Charles—reverted to the other family business and took holy orders. He went to Westminster School, and thence to Christ Church, Oxford. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead he married his first cousin in 1827 and retired into obscurity as a country parson.

Related Topics:
Westminster School - Christ Church, Oxford - Mathematically

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Young Charles was born in the little parsonage of Daresbury in Cheshire, the oldest boy but already the third child of the four-and-a-half year old marriage. Eight more were to follow and, incredibly for the time, all of them—seven girls and four boys— survived into adulthood. When Charles was 11 his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in north Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious Rectory. This remained their home for the next 25 years.

Related Topics:
Parsonage - Daresbury - Cheshire - Croft-on-Tees - Yorkshire

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dodgson senior made some progress through the ranks of the church: he published some sermons, translated Tertullian, became an Archdeacon of Ripon Cathedral, and involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the Anglican church. He was High Church, inclining to Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of Newman and the Tractarian movement, and he did his best to instil such views in his children.

Related Topics:
Tertullian - Ripon Cathedral - Anglo-Catholicism - Newman - Tractarian movement

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the early years young Charles was educated at home. His "reading lists" preserved in the family testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven the child was reading The Pilgrim's Progress. It is often said that he was naturally left-handed and suffered severe psychological trauma by being forced to counteract this tendency, but there is no documentary evidence to support this. Charles also suffered from another disability, a stutter that often influenced his social life throughout his years. At twelve he was sent away to a small private school at nearby Richmond, where he appears to have been happy and settled. But in 1845, young Dodgson moved on to Rugby School, where he was evidently less happy, for as he wrote some years after leaving the place:

Related Topics:
The Pilgrim's Progress - 1845 - Rugby School

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I cannot say ... that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again ... I can honestly say that if I could have been ... secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The nature of this nocturnal 'annoyance' will probably never now be fully understood, but it may be that he is delicately referring to some form of sexual molestation. Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy his age since I came to Rugby" observed R.B. Mayor, the Maths master.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~