Robert Eden (bishop)


Robert Eden was a British Anglican bishop. He was Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Personal life

Eden, the third son of Sir Frederick Morton Eden, was born on 2 September 1804 and educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He took a third class in Classics in 1826 and proceeded B.A. in 1827. Ordained deacon in January 1828 and priest in December 1828 by Christopher Bethell, the Bishop of Gloucester, he served successively the curacies of Weston-sub-Edge in Gloucestershire, and Messing and Peldon in Essex, and became Rector of St Clement's Church, Leigh-on-Sea, in Essex in 1837. Here, on the resignation of Bishop Low, he accepted the offer of the Scottish See of Moray and Ross; he was consecrated at Old Saint Paul's, Edinburgh, 9 March 1851. On this occasion his university conferred on him the degree of D.D. In 1862 he was elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, in succession to Bishop Terrot. In 1827 he married Emma, daughter of Justice Allan Park, by whom he had five sons and five daughters. He died peacefully on the evening of 26 August 1886, at his official residence in Inverness.

Assessment of his accomplishments

The progress which Scottish episcopacy made in his time must be attributed largely to his influence. He had given up a comfortable English living worth £500 or £600 a year for a position of which the yearly emoluments were not more than £150 (about £

The Church Society

Not the least service rendered by the Primus to the Scottish church was in 1876. Large and excited meetings of its members were held in Edinburgh for the purpose of remodelling the whole financial system of the church. The Church Society, the creation of the popular Dean Ramsay, had long shown signs of inability to cope with the growing wants of the church. A small body of reformers aimed at replacing this society by an organisation which should represent every congregation, and those who had worked hard and generously on the old lines were opposed to this. The result, therefore, depended on the view which the primus would take. He threw in his lot with the reformers, and composed many heated debates by his courtly suavity and excellent knowledge of business. The new financial body thus formed, known as the Representative Church Council, has been so successful as to justify his action.
Eden was perhaps a better primus than diocesan bishop. His bonhomie and love of telling jocose stories somewhat scared strict spirits. But his grand manner, which, said one of his clergy, 'made you feel proud of yourself in five minutes,' was very telling. Theologically he was a moderate high churchman, politically an uncompromising Tory.

Works

His published works were:
In addition, he wrote prefaces to Reginald Shuttle's translation of the Heliotropium: Conformity of the Human Will to the Divine by Jeremias Drexel, and to Dmitry Tolstoy's Romanism in Russia.