Excellent Dr Stanley: The life of Dean Stanley of Westminster
John Witheridge
Michael Russell £24
(978-0-85955-323-0)
Church Times Bookshop £21.60 (Use code CT843 )

IT WAS Arthur Stanley's biography of Thomas Arnold rather than Tom Brown's Schooldays that established Arnold's reputation as a public-school headmaster. That is the bold claim made by John Witheridge in this masterly life of Stanley; and he does much to substantiate his claim.

Arnold was Stanley's headmaster at Rugby, and in effect became the dominant figure in his life. He published his biography in 1844, two years after Arnold's early death, and it became an immediate best-seller. Stanley was only 28, but he was soon a household name. His life of Arnold remains his best-known book. He has been accused of hero-worship, but, in the opinion of Witheridge (who is Headmaster of Charterhouse), this is not the case. "His admiration for his subject is unavoidable, but he makes a determined effort to remain impersonal and unbiased."

Stanley was a brilliant academic, and, after attending Balliol College, Oxford, went on to become a fellow of University College. He was an influential secretary of the royal commission appointed to inquire into the state of the University of Oxford - in the days when undergraduates were still set apart from one another according to social rank, "noblemen" and "gentlemen commoners" being distinguished by superior academic robes. And, while still in his early forties, he served as Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford.

Stanley's chief claim to fame in the Church of England was as one of the leaders of the Broad Church party. As such, he found himself involved in many of the ecclesiastical controversies of the day, such as the Gorham Judgment, Essays and Reviews, and the rows over Bishops Hampden and Colenso. His reputation as a theological liberal caused his appointment as Dean of Westminster in 1863 to be greeted with cries of dismay by his opponents. One of these, Canon Christopher Wordsworth, even preached against the appointment from the Abbey pulpit and refused to attend Stanley's installation.

Witheridge shows that the Abbey was in fact the perfect place for Stanley to exercise a distinctive ministry that was rooted in toleration, charity, and the interpenetration of religion and morality. His crowning achievement was to turn the Abbey into the national shrine that it is today. It was his spirit of tolerance that persuaded him to admit a distinguished Unitarian scholar to a service of holy communion in the Abbey, and to be accused by the High Church press of "casting pearls before swine".

Stanley knew many of the leading statesmen and writers of the day. He also became a favourite in Court circles after his marriage in 1863 to a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, Lady Augusta Bruce, daughter of the 7th Earl of Elgin (him of the Marbles). Stanley was then 47 and Augusta 41 (there were no children of the marriage). She died at the early age of 53, worn out not only by her labours in Westminster, but by her still being subject to relentless demands from the Queen, who treated her as if she was still at Court.

Witheridge has woven together the various strands in Stanley's life and career with consummate skill. His book is scholarly, with many pages of source references. But its not least valuable feature is the way in which the author explains theological technicalities for the benefit of the general reader. His footnotes abound in fascinating items of information; nor does he shy away from the seamy side of life - as when he discusses at some length the circumstances that led Stanley's brother-in-law, Charles Vaughan, suddenly to resign the headmastership of Harrow and subsequently to decline the offer of several English bishoprics.

Witheridge's sympathies are obviously on the side of Stanley; but he is scrupulously fair to his opponents and puts both sides of every theological controversy. The result is a model of objective biography.

When Stanley died in July 1881 (the date of the funeral was brought forward a day to enable the Prince of Wales to attend a race meeting at Goodwood), the Church Times was less than generous in its obituary, which took the form of a three-column leading article highly critical in tone. "It cannot be said", the paper thundered, "that his death is a serious loss to the Church of England, or even to the great Abbey over whose temporalities he presided." That is a judgment that surely needs to be revised in the light of history.

Dr Palmer is a former editor of the Church Times.