Liddon Fund

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The Revd Canon Professor Henry Parry Liddon (1829-1890) was a prominent member of the second generation Oxford Movement group of clergy and theologians.  A disciple of E B Pusey Liddon was latterly a canon of St Paul’s Cathedral and Dean Ireland Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford.

After 1906, a house in Kensington (with a later move to Mayfair) became established as a religious centre in London for educated young people.  This was largely intended as a memorial to Canon Liddon and the house became known as Liddon House.  A board of trustees was established by deed in 1927.  The London branch of the William Temple Association flourished at Liddon House between 1955 and 1975.

Liddon House was closed in 1994 and the charity was reconstituted as the Liddon Trust.  The trustees used the modest funds in two ways: making grants to young people of either sex who were studying Theology at postgraduate level, and holding an annual lecture on a subject of intellectual, moral, ethical or theological interest.  A small sum of money was also available to support retreats.

In 2004, the trustees decided to wind up the Trust and to pass the assets to the Society of the Faith, on condition that the Society used the funds for the same purposes as the Trust.  The Society accepted the assets on this basis and now keep them in a restricted fund, called the Liddon Fund, which is used for the specified purposes.  Two or three grants of around £2000 each are generally awarded each year and a lecture in held in the spring.

Details of the terms of grants for Theological Students and how to apply can be found here.

One of the recipients of a grant was Matthew Fairhurst, now a doctoral candidate in the Divinity Faculty at the University of Cambridge. he spoke to the 2022 AGM about his work for a Master’s on St. Maximus the Confessor. The text can be found here – 22 10 Liddon Grant talk Fairhurst.