William Ralph Inge

1860-1954. Dean of St. Paul's, London. Born in Yorkshire and educated at Eton and Cambridge, he taught at Eton and elsewhere (1884-88), lectured in Hertford College, Oxford (1889-1904), was vicar of All Saints', Knightsbridge (1904-7), and for four years thereafter was Lady Margaret professor of divinity at Cambridge. He went to St. Paul's in 1911 and held the post until 1934, despite differences with a theologically conservative and mainly Anglo-Catholic chapter. Of great ability and wide-ranging interests, Inge wrote on many subjects, including mysticism and especially Plotinus. He held that Platonic philosophy and Christianity belong together. For many years he contributed a column to a London daily, expressing himself frankly and not always cheerfully. Theologically he is regarded as a liberal, but he strongly opposed the Catholic modernists Tyrrell and Loisy, holding strongly to the importance of the historical in Christianity.