Robert Henry Charles

Dr Robert Henry Charles was Canon of Westminster from 1913 and Archdeacon from 1919 and is buried with his wife in the north cloister of Westminster Abbey. He was a great scholar and author of commentaries on the Apocalypse and the Book of Daniel. He was born on 6th August 1855 at Cookstown in co. Tyrone in Ireland, a son of David Charles, an eminent doctor, and his wife Annie (Allen). His brother was Major General Sir R. Havelock Charles. Educated in Belfast and Dublin he was ordained in 1883 and served in various London parishes. In 1886 he married Mary Lilias Bence-Jones but they had no children. In Oxford he worked on his writings and was a professor at Trinity College, Dublin from 1898-1906. He was a lecturer at the British Academy and was the first winner of their medal for biblical studies. Disabled by a road accident in 1929 he died at his house in the Abbey precincts on 30th January 1931. The inscription on a pale stone reads:

R.H. Charles D.D. F.B.A. Canon and Archdeacon of Westminster 1913-1931. Born 1855. Died 1931. Mary Lilias wife of the above born 1851 died 1935.

Further reading

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004

Memoir by C.D'Arcy in R.H.Charles Courage, truth, purity, 1931

Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey by R.H. Charles, 1917

The Decalogue: being the Warburton Lectures...1919-1923 by R.H. Charles, Edinburgh 1923

His library was left to Ripon Hall in Oxford