William Maskell

Somerset, 1814 - 1890, Penzance

BiographyLC name authority rec. n86848886
Biography:
Maskell, William (1814–1890), Roman Catholic convert and liturgical scholar, the only son of William Maskell (1777–1841), solicitor, and Mary Miles (1772–1854), was born on 17 May 1814 at Shepton Mallet, Somerset. In 1823 the family moved to fashionable Bath. Maskell matriculated on 9 June 1832 at University College, Oxford. He graduated BA in 1836, and proceeded MA in 1838, having taken holy orders in the previous year. From the first an extremely high-churchman, in 1840 he attacked the latitudinarian bishop of Norwich, Edward Stanley, for supporting the movement for the relaxation of subscription. In 1842 he became rector of Corscombe, Dorset, but within a year he resigned his living to devote himself to research into the history of Anglican ritual. His Ancient liturgy of the Church of England ... and the modern Roman liturgy, arranged in parallel columns appeared in 1844 and was followed by his Monumenta ritualia ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, or, Occasional Offices of the Church of England (3 vols., 1846; 2nd edn, 1882). In 1970 there was a facsimile reprint of this work.

These works at once placed Maskell in the front rank of English ecclesiastical antiquaries. His diocesan, Edward Denison, bishop of Salisbury, to whom he had dedicated his Monumenta, recommended his appointment as domestic chaplain to the bishop of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, and in July 1847 he was instituted vicar of St Mary Church, Torquay. His first major duty was to assist the bishop in his examination of the Revd George Cornelius Gorham, concerning his views on baptism, after his presentation to the vicarage of Brampford Speke, near Exeter. Maskell was peculiarly well qualified for this duty, in view of his extensive knowledge of the history of the doctrine and practice of baptism. The Gorham case inspired his Holy Baptism: a Dissertation (1848). In 1849 he published a volume of sermons in which high-church views both of baptism and of the holy eucharist were expounded; and in An Enquiry into the Doctrine of the Church of England upon Absolution (1849) he attempted to justify the revival of the confessional.

However, the Gorham case changed Maskell's view of the Church of England. Initially he had agreed wholeheartedly with the bishop of Exeter that Gorham's teaching on baptism was heretical and he deplored Gorham's appeal to the privy council against the bishop who had refused to institute him; but as the case unfolded, Maskell underwent a period of anguished reflection, and came to the conclusion that the privy council committee, though composed of laymen, was indeed the legitimate arbiter of the doctrinal dispute, and that Gorham's views on baptism were not repugnant to the formularies of the Church of England. He published his volte-face in three provocative pamphlets between February and June 1850: The Royal Supremacy and the Authority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, The Want of Dogmatic Teaching in the Church of England, and Correspondence of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of Exeter with the Rev. W. Maskell. These pamphlets made it clear that Maskell's faith in the Church of England was collapsing.

Soon afterwards, having sought advice from J. H. Newman, Maskell resigned his living, and was received into the Church of Rome. He publicized his secession in his Letter to the Rev. Dr. Pusey on his Receiving Persons in Auricular Confession (1850). As a Roman Catholic he refrained from controversy until the decree of the Vatican council defining the dogma of papal infallibility. In his pamphlet entitled What is the Meaning of the late Definition on the Infallibility of the Pope? (1871), he espoused the views propounded by liberal Roman Catholics such as Newman, and challenged the interpretation of the decree put forward by the archbishop of Westminster, Henry Manning, in his pastoral letter of 1870. For this Maskell was violently attacked in the ultramontane Tablet and had his pamphlet examined for heresy by the archbishop. However, he made his peace with Manning and in 1872 published under the title Protestant Ritualists some very trenchant remarks on the privy council case of Sheppard v. Bennett and the position of the Tractarians in the Church of England. W. J. E. Bennett had been charged with heresy for his extremely high views on the eucharist, but had been acquitted. In a final burst of controversy in 1876 Maskell castigated Sabine Baring-Gould's biography of the poet Robert Stephen Hawker, and defended his friend Hawker against the allegation that he had secretly subscribed to Roman Catholicism while officiating as vicar of Morwenstow.

Maskell never took orders in the Church of Rome. Although a widower at the time of his conversion in 1850, he told Newman emphatically that he was ‘quite sure’ he ‘never should or would’ ask for holy orders in the Church of Rome. This was probably because he had three young sons to care for. His second marriage in 1852 made priesthood impossible. He spent his later life in retirement, residing at Bude, Cornwall, and dividing his time between the activities of a country gentleman and antiquarian pursuits. In 1855 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, but resigned some time after 1886. He was judged to be a man of considerable literary and conversational powers. Thanks to a fortune inherited from his father, he amassed a considerable library of patristic literature, and collected medieval service books, enamels, and carvings in ivory, many of which he gave to the British and South Kensington museums. For the committee of council on education he edited in 1872 A Description of the Ivories, Ancient and Modern, in the South Kensington Museum. He was a JP and a deputy lieutenant for the county of Cornwall.

Maskell was married twice, first in 1837 to Mary Scott (d. 1847); second in 1852 to Monique Stein (d. 1895). With his first wife he had one daughter and three sons: Mary (1838–1845); William (1839–1898), registrar of the University of New Zealand; Stuart (1843–1912), solicitor; and Alfred (1845–1912), art historian. He died at 1 Alexandra Terrace, Penzance, on 12 April 1890 and was buried at Penzance.

A conscientious and profound liturgical scholar, Maskell was also a keen theological controversialist. Particularly adept at legalistic and historical argument, he would castigate his opponents with firm belief in his superior logic and in the complete righteousness of his cause.

J. M. Rigg, rev. David Maskell
(J. M. Rigg, “Maskell, William (1814–1890),” rev. David Maskell, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eee ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, January 2010, accessed September 2015. www.oxforddnb.com)

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