The Oxford Movement & Education Conference

On Friday 23rd September St Edward’s was delighted to act as the host for a conference on the subject of The Oxford Movement in Education, long in the planning and encouraged in the main by Malcolm Oxley, Chris Jones and The Warden.

The conference was opened with great aplomb and erudition by Professor Michael Wheeler, a Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton. Professor Wheeler’s wide-ranging talk began in a manner that befitted the location, by offering a description of the Teddies Chapel in its first years. With OSE, current and former members of the teaching staff, pupils and Governors in the audience this was a description of a place that felt familiar to many and insightful to all. The themes that were touched upon throughout the talk defined the day; of the connections and the differences between the Tractarian and the Evangelical movements, the role of the supposed Whiggish oppression of the 1830s which spawned the rejection of Anglicanism in its then current state, the interpretations of the Reformation that the Tractarian movement offered and the influence that the Movement had in the emergence of schools, including St Edward’s. Professor Wheeler not only laid out the intellectual framework for the day but set the standard for all other speakers to meet and as the audience was delighted to find, it was a standard that was matched. Raucous laughter is not often associated with discussions on the nuances of religious reform in the 19^th Century but Dr Joshua Bennett’s talk on the writings of Reverend Crake, the first Chaplain of Bloxham, produced just that. Rev’d Crake wrote novels featuring a high-minded and devout hero who, in contrast to the more louche anti-hero, would overcome any problem thrown at him in the historical setting of the tale. Further talks from Ryan Blank, Janet Howarth, Mary-Clare Martin and the School’s former Sub-Warden and HM of Segar’s, Malcolm Oxley, kept the rhetorical and intellectual standard high and dived into every aspect of the gathering’s topic.

The day concluded with Evensong, led by the Chamber Choir and including Malcolm’s homily on the nature of the past sermons spoken within the chapel in which we sat, leaving each individual conscious, no matter their thoughts on the theological aspects of the Oxford Movement, that we should be grateful for its role in the development of schools like these.