The Henson Journals

[371]

Wednesday, October 14th, 1908.

This morning Sir Kenneth Muir Mackenzie came to see me with respect to our Petition to the King. He suggested that we should send in our case as concisely as possible: that the Dean should do the same: that the Lord Chancellor shd determine the questions submitted & report to H.M., who thereupon shd write to us a letter quâ Visitor settling everything. I told him that this was precisely what we desired.

Pearce came to see me, & we walked together. He says that 'Truth' had got told of my refusing the Oxford Professorship.

My wife & I dined at the Ladies' Club in Grosvenor Street with the Parker Smiths. It was a family party gathered [to] bid farewell to Wilmot Parker Smith; who starts for India tomorrow.

A consignment of books arrived from Sotheran's including Baxter's Breviate on his Wife, and the Camden Society's edition of Bp. Cartwright's 'Diary'.

[372] [symbol]

I wrote a short review of Sir Oliver Lodge's new book "Man & the Universe". It is really for the most part a rechauffé [sic] of Hibbert Journal Articles. This review appeared in the 'Daily Graphic' on Saturday, the 17th Oct. On that day I attended the luncheon in Gray's Inn Hall, which the Benchers gave in order to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Bacon's Treasurership. There was a great gathering of legal & literary luminaries. Of ecclesiastics I observed none but the Master of the Temple, Cunningham, the Preacher of the Inn, the Bishop of Exeter, Headlam, & three Canons of Westminster (Wilberforce, Henson, Beeching). I sat between Mr Russell K.C., & Mr Pomeroy A.R.A., opposite to me was Sidney Lee. The only speeches were an Oration on Bacon by the Treasurer, Mr Duke K.C., and a brief reply to the toast of the guests of the American Ambassador.

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Issues and controversies: petition to the king