Frederic William Farrar

Frederic William Farrar

Frederic William Farrar (1831–1903), often known as Dean Farrar, was a theological writer.

Farrar was born in Bombay, India and educated at King William's College in the Isle of Man, King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he won the Chancellor's Gold Medal for poetry in 1852. He was for some years a master at Harrow School, and from 1871-76 Master (headmaster) of Marlborough College.

He became successively Canon of Westminster and Rector of St. Margaret's, Archdeacon of Westminster and Dean of Canterbury. He was an eloquent preacher and a voluminous author, his writings including stories of school life, such as Eric, or, Little by Little and St. Winifred's, a Life of Christ (1874), which had great popularity, a Life of St. Paul (1879), and two historical romances. His works were translated into many languages, especially Life of Christ.

He was a believer in universal reconciliation and thought that all people would eventually be saved, a view he promoted in a series of 1877 sermons. He originated the term "abominable fancy" for the longstanding Christian idea that the eternal punishment of the damned would entertain the saved. Farrar published Eternal Hope in 1878 and Mercy and Judgment in 1881, both of which defend Christian universalism at length.

His daughter, Maud, was the mother of World War II British field marshal Bernard Montgomery.

Farrar has a street named after him - Dean Farrar Street in Westminster, London. In 2007 the top two storeys of a building on this street collapsed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_William_Farrar