Charles John Vaughan, Dean of Llandaff Cathedral

Description

In 1869 Dean Vaughan was made Master of the Temple; and became exceedingly popular with his congregation of lawyers. Ten years later he added to his duties those of Dean of Llandaff. He last preached at the Cathedral on the 21st of June, 1896; and though he afterwards entered the church, he never again ascended the pulpit. He was to have preached on July the 12th following, and arrangements were made accordingly, but at the last moment his strength failed him, and the idea had to be abandoned.

Dr. Vaughan may be said to have inherited a system hopelessly corrupted from its intended use, and he was, of course, powerless as headmaster of Harrow School to restore that school to the children of the town, and especially to the children of the Harrow poor, who had been for generations de- frauded of their legal right to culture by being defrauded of that local in- heritance which provided for their schooling. It will always redound to his honour, as the headmaster of John Lyon's school for the boys of Harrow town, that he did his utmost for the extension of local education outside the boundaries of the ex-propriated school. He founded the Lower School of John Lyon," by which the sons of the vulgar natives, as well as the sons of the foreigner and of the yellow inter- national," have been able to enjoy some fragments of the endowment which their patriotic ancestor bequeathed them. He founded a Harrow Young Men's Society and a Harrow Literary Society, each of which had a handsome building, though both have fallen into extinction since his departure, and we are told that both buildings are now diverted to other purposes. If all headmasters would make a conscience of imitating Dr. Vaughan in this respect, they would do a, little towards justifying their present anomalous position.

Letter from the Late Deans Brother

The Rev. Edward T. Vaughan writes to say that his brother, the late Dean of Llandaff, was ordained, not by Bishop Allen at Ely, but by Bishop Stanley at Norwich. Mr Vaughan continues: "He resigned the living of St. Martin's, Leicester, after holding it for just three years, on his appointment to the Head Mastership of Harrow School; and Lord Lyndhurst as Chancellor appointed myself, his elder brother, as his successor. I held the vicarage until November 1859; and was then succeeded, on the appointment of Lord Campbell, by my youngest brother, David James, Vaughan, like his father, an ex-Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge. My brother, Edwyn Henry Vaughan, of Christ's College, Cambridge, was appointed in 1849 an assistant master of Harrow School by his brother the headmaster, an appointment amply vindicated in after years by its eminent success. Of my father's five sons four were educated under Dr. Arnold at Rugby. At the time of my father's death, I was past the age for admission at Rugby."

The Bar v. The Church

A correspondent writes: "While Charles Vaughan was at Cambridge he was entered at one of the Inns of Court with the intention of going to the Bar, as his uncle, Baron Vaughan, was then a Judge, and it was thought by the family that the connection would be valuable in the future. However, the Baron died about the time when Charles Vaughan took his degree, and he abandoned the Bar for the Church."