logical Essays (1905) and Essays Liturgical and Historical (1917). He also edited the Sarum Missal, from three early manuscripts, for the Clarendon Press in 1916. His English Church Life from the Restoration to the Tractarian Movement (1914) is a remarkable collection of evidence to show that in the period from 1660 to 1833 traditional church doctrines and practices prevailed more commonly than is often supposed. In 1913 the university of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.Litt. in recognition of his liturgical scholarship.
In ecclesiastical as in medical matters Wickham Legg's mind was strongly sceptical of new movements. This made him extremely conservative, and although he was open to conviction, it needed almost a scientific demonstration to convince him. He relied on the general validity of the appeal to history in the church, and as time went on his mistrust of the speculations of liberal theology and his dislike of Anglo-Catholic developments increased. He would tell with keen humour how in 1886 he had been described as ‘one of a conspiracy to restore the ceremonial of fifty years ago’, and probably he vastly preferred that traditional ceremonial, reverently performed, to innovations introduced, without historical inquiry, from current practice in France or Belgium. He held that the present generation lacked both the knowledge and the taste successfully to revise the Prayer Book; consequently he opposed Prayer Book revision in some learned and pungent pamphlets (The Proposed Revision of the Prayer Book, 1909; Shall We Revise the Prayer Book?, 1911). He described the aim of some of the leaders of the movement as being ‘under pretence of revision, to undermine the doctrinal position of the Church of England in favour of the liberals, men who profess a new religion, of such a character that it may be doubted if it have any claim at all to be considered historical Christianity’. He was elected a member of the house of laymen of the province of Canterbury in 1910, his position being that of a strong high churchman of the Tractarian type.
Wickham Legg married in 1872 Eliza Jane, daughter of Richard Houghton, of Sandheys, Great Crosby, near Liverpool. There was one son of the marriage, who was elected a fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1908. On his wife's death in that year Legg removed from his house in Green Street, Park Lane, to Oxford, where he resided till his death on 28 October 1921. He is buried at Saltwood, Kent.
In person Legg was of middle height, portly, with a handsome face and fine head. In 1917 his sight became impaired, and at the end of his life he was almost blind. He possessed a rare charm of manner, was a first-rate raconteur, and a delightful host to a large circle of friends. They included many foreign savants, among them the future Pope Pius XI who, as prefect of the Ambrosian Library, was Legg's guest at Oxford at the commemoration of Roger Bacon in 1914.
[Memoir (by Sir A. E. Garrod), with portrait, in St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, vol. lv, 1922; private information; personal knowledge.]
LEVY-LAWSON, EDWARD, first Baron Burnham (1833–1916), newspaper proprietor, was born in London 28 December 1833, the eldest of the eight children of Joseph Moses Levy [q.v.], manager of a printing establishment in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, by his wife, Esther, daughter of Godfrey Alexander Cohen. Edward Levy assumed the additional surname of Lawson by royal licence in 1875, in consideration of a deed of gift by his father's brother, Lionel Lawson. He was educated at University College School, Gower Street, London, and, on leaving, joined as dramatic critic the staff of the Sunday Times, at that time owned by his father. ‘It was in the back office on the ground floor at the corner of Bridge Street,’ he once told an audience many years later, ‘I sometimes, in the intervals of providing copy, had visions of a future, which, with the help of many kind friends, has been happily realized.’ In 1855 Joseph Levy acquired the Daily Telegraph and Courier, after three months' precarious existence, from its original founder, Colonel Sleigh, in liquidation of a printing debt. The new owner put fresh capital and energy into the business, dropped the second half of the cumbrous title, gathered round him a vigorous staff (including his son, who shortly afterwards became editor), and turned a losing into a paying property.
The moment was exceptionally favourable for new developments in journalism. The possibilities of the electric telegraph, then still a novelty and a wonder, were just beginning to be understood, although it was not till later that the London press made extensive use of the opportunities which it provided for the rapid transmission of news. The abolition of the last of the paper duties in 1861 cleared the way for the development of the penny press, of which the Daily Telegraph was the
331
