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C. S. Lewis: A Life
Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
Alister E McGrath
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eBook - ePub
C. S. Lewis: A Life
Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
Alister E McGrath
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About This Book
The recent Narnia films have inspired a resurgence of interest in C. S. Lewis, the Oxford academic, popular theologian and, most famously, creator of the magical world of Narnia - and this authoritative new biography, published to mark the 50th anniversary of Lewis's death, sets out to introduce him to a new generation. Completely up to date with scholarly studies of Lewis, it also focuses on how Lewis came to write the Narnia books, and why they have proved so consistently engaging. Accessible and engaging, this new biography will appeal to fans of the films, readers of Lewis and of theologian and apologist Alister McGrath himself.
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Religious BiographiesPart 1
Prelude
Chapter 1 | 1898â1908
The Soft Hills of Down: An Irish Childhood
âI was born in the winter of 1898 at Belfast, the son of a solicitor and of a clergymanâs daughter.â1 On 29 November 1898, Clive Staples Lewis was plunged into a world that was simmering with political and social resentment and clamouring for change. The partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was still two decades away. Yet the tensions that would lead to this artificial political division of the island were obvious to all. Lewis was born into the heart of the Protestant establishment of Ireland (the âAscendancyâ) at a time when every one of its aspectsâpolitical, social, religious, and culturalâwas under threat.
Ireland was colonised by English and Scottish settlers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, leading to deep political and social resentment on the part of the dispossessed native Irish towards the incomers. The Protestant colonists were linguistically and religiously distinct from the native Catholic Irish. Under Oliver Cromwell, âProtestant plantationsâ developed during the seventeenth centuryâEnglish Protestant islands in an Irish Catholic sea. The native Irish ruling classes were quickly displaced by a new Protestant establishment. The 1800 Act of Union saw Ireland become part of the United Kingdom, ruled directly from London. Despite being a numerical minority, located primarily in the northern counties of Down and Antrim, including the industrial city of Belfast, Protestants dominated the cultural, economic, and political life of Ireland.
Yet all this was about to change. In the 1880s, Charles Stewart Parnell (1846â1891) and others began to agitate for âHome Ruleâ for Ireland. In the 1890s, Irish nationalism began to gain momentum, creating a sense of Irish cultural identity that gave new energy to the Home Rule movement. This was strongly shaped by Catholicism, and was vigorously opposed to all forms of English influence in Ireland, including games such as rugby and cricket. More significantly, it came to consider the English language as an agent of cultural oppression. In 1893 the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) was founded to promote the study and use of the Irish language. Once more, this was seen as an assertion of Irish identity over and against what were increasingly regarded as alien English cultural norms.
As demands for Home Rule for Ireland became increasingly forceful and credible, many Protestants felt threatened, fearing the erosion of privilege and the possibility of civil strife. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Protestant community in Belfast in the early 1900s was strongly insular, avoiding social and professional contact with their Catholic neighbours wherever possible. (C. S. Lewisâs older brother, Warren [âWarnieâ], later recalled that he never spoke to a Catholic from his own social background until he entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in 1914.)2 Catholicism was âthe Otherââsomething that was strange, incomprehensible, and above all threatening. Lewis absorbed such hostility towardsâand isolation fromâCatholicism with his motherâs milk. When the young Lewis was being toilet trained, his Protestant nanny used to call his stools âwee popes.â Many regarded, and still regard, Lewis as lying outside the pale of true Irish cultural identity on account of his Ulster Protestant roots.
The Lewis Family
The 1901 Census of Ireland recorded the names of everyone who âslept or abodeâ at the Lewis household in East Belfast on the night of Sunday, 31 March 1901. The record included a mass of personal detailsârelationship to one another, religion, level of education, age, sex, rank or occupation, and place of birth. Although most biographies refer to the Lewis household as then residing at â47 Dundela Avenue,â the Census records them as living at âHouse 21 in Dundella [sic] Avenue (Victoria, Down).â The entry for the Lewis household provides an accurate snapshot of the family at the opening of the twentieth century:
Albert James Lewis, Head of Family, Church of Ireland, Read & Write, 37, M, Solicitor, Married, City of Cork
Florence Augusta Lewis, Wife, Church of Ireland, Read & Write, 38, F, Married, County Cork
Warren Hamilton Lewis, Son, Church of Ireland, Read, 5, M, Scholar, City of Belfast
Clive Staples Lewis, Son, Church of Ireland, Cannot Read, 2, M, City of Belfast
Martha Barber, Servant, Presbyterian, Read & Write, 28, F, NurseâDomestic Servant, Not Married, County Monaghan
Sarah Ann Conlon, Servant, Roman Catholic, Read & Write, 22, F, CookâDomestic Servant, Not Married, County Down3
As the Census entry indicates, Lewisâs father, Albert James Lewis (1863â1929), was born in the city and county of Cork, in the south of Ireland. Lewisâs paternal grandfather, Richard Lewis, was a Welsh boilermaker who had immigrated to Cork with his Liverpudlian wife in the early 1850s. Soon after Albertâs birth, the Lewis family moved to the northern industrial city of Belfast, so that Richard could go into partnership with John H. MacIlwaine to form the successful firm MacIlwaine, Lewis & Co., Engineers and Iron Ship Builders. Perhaps the most interesting ship to be built by this small company was the original Titanicâa small steel freight steamer built in 1888, weighing a mere 1,608 tons.4
Yet the Belfast shipbuilding industry was undergoing change in the 1880s, with the larger yards of Harland and Wolff and Workman Clark achieving commercial dominance. It became increasingly difficult for the âwee yardsâ to survive economically. In 1894, Workman Clark took over MacIlwaine, Lewis & Co. The rather more famous version of the Titanicâalso built in Belfastâwas launched in 1911 from the shipyard of Harland and Wolff, weighing 26,000 tons. Yet while Harland and Wolffâs liner famously sank on its maiden voyage in 1912, MacIlwaine and Lewisâs much smaller ship continued to ply its trade in South American waters under other names until 1928.
1.1 Royal Avenue, one of the commercial hubs of the city of Belfast, in 1897. Albert Lewis established his solicitorâs practice at 83 Royal Avenue in 1884, and continued working from these offices until his final illness in 1929.
Albert showed little interest in the shipbuilding business, and made it clear to his parents that he wanted to pursue a legal career. Richard Lewis, knowing of the excellent reputation of Lurgan College under its headmaster, William Thompson Kirkpatrick (1848â1921), decided to enrol Albert there as a boarding pupil.5 Albert formed a lasting impression of Kirkpatrickâs teaching skills during his year there. After Albert graduated in 1880, he moved to Dublin, the capital city of Ireland, where he worked for five years for the firm of Maclean, Boyle, and Maclean. Having gained the necessary experience and professional accreditation as a solicitor, he moved back to Belfast in 1884 to establish his own practice with offices on Belfastâs prestigious Royal Avenue.
The Supreme Court of Judicature (Ireland) Act of 1877 followed the English practice of making a clear distinction between the legal role of âsolicitorsâ and âbarristers,â so that aspiring Irish lawyers were required to decide which professional position they wished to pursue. Albert Lewis chose to become a solicitor, acting directly on behalf of clients, including representing them in the lower courts. A barrister specialised in courtroom advocacy, and would be hired by a solicitor to represent a client in the higher courts.6
Lewisâs mother, Florence (âFloraâ) Augusta Lewis (1862â1908), was born in Queenstown (now Cobh), County Cork. Lewisâs maternal grandfather, Thomas Hamilton (1826â1905), was a Church of Ireland clergymanâa classic representative of the Protestant Ascendancy that came under threat as Irish nationalism became an increasingly significant and cultural force in the early twentieth century. The Church of Ireland had been the established church throughout Ireland, despite being a minority faith in at least twenty-two of the twenty-six Irish counties. When Flora was eight, her father accepted the post of chaplain to Holy Trinity Church in Rome, where the family lived from 1870 to 1874.
In 1874, Thomas Hamilton returned to Ireland to take up the position of curate-in-charge of Dundela Church in the Ballyhackamore area of East Belfast. The same temporary building served as a church on Sundays and a school during weekdays. It soon became clear that a more permanent arrangement was required. Work soon began on a new, purpose-Âbuilt church, designed by the famous English ecclesiastical architect William Butterfield. Hamilton was installed as rector of the newly built parish church of St. Markâs, Dundela, in May 1879.
Irish historians now regularly point to Flora Hamilton as illustrating the increasingly significant role of women in Irish academic and cultural life in the final quarter of the nineteenth century.7 She was enrolled as a day pupil at the Methodist College, Belfastâan all-boys school, founded in 1865, at which âLadiesâ Classesâ had been established in response to popular demand in 1869.8 She attended for one term in 1881, and went on to study at the Royal University of Ireland in Belfast (now Queenâs University, Belfast), gaining First Class Honours in Logic and Second Class Honours in Mathematics in 1886.9 (As will become clear, Lewis failed to inherit anything of his motherâs gift for mathematics.)
When Albert Lewis began to attend St. Markâs, Dundela, his eye was caught by the rectorâs daughter. Slowly but surely, Flora appears to have been drawn to Albert, partly on account of his obvious literary interests. Albert had joined the Belmont Literary Society in 1881, and was soon considered one of its best speakers. His reputation as a man of literary inclinations would remain with him for the rest of his life. In 1921, at the height of Albert Lewisâs career as a solicitor, Irelandâs Saturday Night newspaper featured him in a cartoon. Dressed in the garb of a court solicitor of the period, he is depicted as holding a mortarboard under one arm and a volume of English literature under the other. Years later, Albert Lewisâs obituary in the Belfast Telegraph described him as a âwell read and erudite man,â noted for literary allusions in his presentations in court, and who âfound his chief recreation away from the courts of law in reading.â10
After a suitably decorous and extended courtship, Albert and Flora were married on 29 A...