Home › Charles Kingsley › Charles Kingsley (Born on the th of June)

Charles Kingsley (Born on the th of June)

CHARLES KINGSLEY was born on the 12th of June, 1819, at Holne Vicarage, under the brow of Dartmoor, in Devonshire, England. He left Holne when six weeks old, and never saw his birthplace until he was a man of thirty; yet Devonshire scenes and associations had always a mysterious charm for him. Kingsley was said to have been an instance of the truth of Darwin's theory, "that genius which implies a wonderfully complex combination of high faculties tends to be inherited." His love of art, his sporting tastes, his fighting blood, he inherited from his father's side, the men of whose family were soldiers for generations.

From his mother's side came not only his love of travel, science, and literature, but the romance of his nature and his sense of humor. When Charles was still a young child his father, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, moved to Barnock Rectory. It was at Barnock that the boy's earliest sporting tastes and love of natural history developed; as soon as he was old enough he was mounted on his father's horse in front of the keeper, to bring back the game-bag.

The glorious sunsets over the Fens had great charm for him all his life; the pictures of the Fens and the life there were stamped on his mind and inspired him, in after years, in writing the story of "Hereward the Wake." Later his father moved to Clovelly; the new elements in life here, the unique scenery and the impressionable character of the people, their courage and the wild life of the men, threw a charm of romance about the place, which colored his life. This is shown in "Westward Ho!" and in the song of "Three Fishers," which was not an imaginary picture, but a true delineation of what he saw again and again at Clovelly.

As a preacher, Kingsley was vivid, eager, and earnest.He was keenly interested in the movement known as Christian Socialism.

As a novelist, his chief power lay in his descriptive faculties. Besides sermons, poems, and addresses, he wrote the "Saint's Tragedy," a drama, and among others the following novels: "Alton Locke," "Yeast," "Westward Ho!" and "Hypatia." Many of his writings in "The Christian Socialist" and "Politics for the People" were signed by the pseudonym "Parson Lot." He died at Eversley, January 23, 1875.

WESTWARD HO!