Hurrell Froude and the development of his ideal of the church

Abstract

Froude was bom in 1803 into a Devon clerical family of social standing and High Church tradition. The godly Keble, his tutor at Oriel, affected him profoundly. In 1826 he became a Fellow of Oriel and there met Newman. Fronde's ideas soon began to show a clear Catholic tendency which he expressed in his writing with outspoken vigour. New Government Acts, which allowed non-Anglicans to sit in Parliament and so influence the Church's life, were strongly opposed by Froude and his friends. Poor health led Froude to spend six months in the Mediterranean with his father and Newman. There, the Church of Rome both attracted and repelled them. Froude increasingly felt the necessity for the Church to be free from State interference. After Keble’s Assize sermon, the incipient Oxford Movement came to life with the publication of the Tracts for the Times by Newman who emphasised the apostolic succession and the Church as the creation of God. Fronde's ideas, meanwhile, continued in an ever more Catholic direction and with increasing rejection of the Reformers. His influence on Newman was substantial. At the end of 1833, he went to Barbados for 18 months for his health. He increasingly felt the necessity for holiness within the Church and the dangers of rationalism and liberalism. He believed that the Church possessed authority in the world. He frequently looked to the Nonjurors and increasingly towards Rome. While accepting the infallibility of the Apostolic Church, he rejected that of the Papacy and also transubstantiation which he understood as rationalistic. He believed deeply in the Real Presence and the centrality of the Eucharist in worship. After his death in 1836, Keble and Newman collected and published his Remains, which aroused anger and scorn, with some joyous agreement.