HOUGHTON, HENRY HALL- (1823–1889), divine, son of Jeremiah Houghton, by his wife, Hannah Hall, was born at Dublin on 10 Dec. 1823. He was educated first at Sherborne school, and afterwards obtained a close scholarship at Pembroke College, Oxford. He graduated B.A. without honours in 1845, and became M.A. in 1848. He was ordained deacon in 1849, and priest in 1850. Until 1852 he served the curacy of St. Peter's, Cheltenham, but from that year ill-health compelled him to refrain from active work. In 1871, on the death of his uncle, John Hall, hon. canon of Bristol since 1846, he succeeded to the estate of Melmerby, Cumberland, and changed his name to Hall-Houghton. The work of his life was the endeavour to promote the accurate study of holy scripture. In conjunction with Canon Hall, he founded at Oxford in 1868, 1870, and 1871 the Canon Hall and the Hall-Houghton prizes for a knowledge of the Greek Testament, the Septuagint, and the Syriac versions. To the Church Missionary Society he gave in all a sum of 4,500l. to promote the systematic study of holy scripture by natives of North India, West Africa, North-west America, and New Zealand. In 1875 Hall-Houghton married Mary, daughter of the Rev. John Dawson Hull. He died at Melmerby Hall, on 4 Sept. 1889.
[Record, 20 Sept. 1889; Church Missionary Society Intelligencer, November 1889; Oxford University Calendar, 1890; information supplied by Mrs. Hall-Houghton.]
HOUGHTON, JOHN (1488?–1535), prior of the London Charterhouse, born in Essex of honourable parents in or about 1488, studied at Cambridge, and took the degrees of B.A. and LL.B. His parents then wished him to marry, but as he had resolved to embrace the ecclesiastical life, he left them and dwelt in concealment with a devout priest until he could himself take holy orders. Subsequently he graduated B.D. at Cambridge (Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. i. 52). Having exercised the functions of a secular priest for four years, he entered the Carthusian order in London at the age of twenty-eight, and after acting as sacristan for five years, became procurator for about three years. In 1530 he was made prior of Beauvale, Nottinghamshire, but was elected prior of his old house in London in November 1531. His biographer says ‘he was slight of stature, elegant in appearance, shy in look, modest in manner, sweet in speech, chaste in body, humble of heart, amiable and beloved by all’ (Chauncy, Hist. of the Sufferings of Eighteen Carthusians, ed. 1890, p. 21).
The Charterhouse was perhaps the best ordered religious community in England. From the commencement of the divorce cause the monks had espoused Queen Catherine's side, and they regarded the reforming measures of the parliament with consternation. In 1534 the act was passed cutting off the Princess Mary from the succession, and requiring of all subjects of the realm an oath of allegiance to Elizabeth and a recognition of the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn. Royal commissioners appeared at the Charterhouse to require the submission of the brethren. They refused to take the oath of allegiance, and Houghton and Father Humphrey, the procurator, were accordingly sent to the Tower. At the end of a month Houghton was persuaded by ‘certain good and learned men,’ including Stokesley, bishop of London, that the cause was not one for which it was lawful to suffer. He therefore undertook to comply conditionally, with some necessary reservations, and was sent back to the cloister. The royal commissioners went there with the lord mayor for the oath, and it was refused. They went again, with the threat of instant imprisonment for the whole community, and then all the monks swore as they were required, protesting that they submitted only as far as it was lawful for them so to do.
Subsequently the Carthusians were called upon to acknowledge that the king was supreme head on earth of the church of England. Notice of the intention of the government having been signified to the order, Augustine Webster, prior of Axholme, Lincolnshire, and Robert Lawrence, prior of Beauvale, Nottinghamshire, came up to London, and with Houghton presented themselves before Cromwell, and entreated to be excused from submission. They were sent to the Tower, where they were soon joined by Richard Reynolds, a Brigittine monk of Sion. These four were examined on 26 April 1535 before a committee of the privy council, of which Cromwell was a member. On their refusal to accept the act of supremacy, they were brought to trial before a special commission, and on the following day (29 April) were found guilty by a jury and condemned to death. The execution took place at Tyburn on 4 May 1535, when for the first time in English history ecclesiastics were brought out in their habits without undergoing the previous ceremony of degradation. With the monks, John Haile, a secular priest, vicar of Isleworth, Middle-
