"Dr. Dale" by Edward Onslow Ford

Dr. Dale

Edward Onslow Ford

Collection: Birmingham Art Gallery

Source: the 1897-98 Magazine of Art: 117.

Dr William Dale (1829-95) was a well-known Congregationalist preacher who for over four decades ministered at Carrs Lane Church, Birmingham. Dr Dale was born in London but studied theology at Springhill College, Birmingham, and was later granted a Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Glasgow in 1883. [Commentary continues below.]

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Image scan, caption and formatting by George P. Landow. Commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee.

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A staunch Liberal, he worked with John Bright, Joseph Chamberlain and others, taking controversial stands on issues such as Irish Home Rule, and the place of religion in education. Matthew Arnold described him as a "brilliant pugilist" with an "arena ... down in Birmingham" but worried that his pugilistic engagements on such issues interfered with his religious life (qtd. in A. W. W. Dale 379), but they seem not to have done, and were another of many testimonies to the vigorous political life of the Nonconformist Midlands.

Edward Onslow Ford sculpted this marble statue of Dale in his Doctor of Laws robes in 1897. The statue was neglected for many years, but came to light in a Birmingham City Council warehouse during the celebration of his centenary in 1995. It was then restored, cleaned and unveiled in the main foyer at Carrs Lane on 2 July 2001 by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, and remains there on permanent loan. It can once again be said that:

He is not without a memorial in the city that he loved so long and so well. His statue ... shows him as he was, not in the pulpit or on the platform, with the vehemence and passion of the orator, but in those hours of quietness when, apart from the conflict and turmoil of the world, he dwelt in those high and sacred regions where the springs of the inner life take their rise.

Dale's son, who wrote his biography, continues by saying that "he has another memorial, nobler and imperishable — one that even the genius of the sculptor cannot match — in the abiding strength of the great church to which he ministered for more than forty years" (694). It is good to know that he is still very much remembered there today. Another of his legacies was Mansfield College, Oxford, which had its origins in Springhill College where he had studied, and which he helped to reestablish in Oxford in the later 1880s. He also wrote an important history of Congregationalism, which his son completed for him, and which is available on the Internet Archive (see below).

Related Material

Sources

“The Chronicle of Art.” Magazine of Art 22 (November 1897-October 1898): 114-18. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 29 October 2014.

Dale, A. W. W. The Life of R. W. Dale of Birmingham. New York: Dodd Mead and Co. 1899. Internet Archive. Contributed by Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Web. 14 November 2014.

Dale, R. W. History of English Congregationalism. Completed and edited by A. W. W. Dale. New York: Armstrong and Son, 1907. Internet Archive. Contributed by Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Web. 14 November 2014.

"The Dale Statue." The Carrs Lane Church Centre. Web. 14 November 2014.

"Dr R. W. Dale." The Carrs Lane Church Centre. Web. 14 November 2014.

Last modified 15 November 2014