Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Hayman, Henry
HAYMAN, HENRY (1823-1904), honorary canon of Carlisle and headmaster of Rugby, born on 3 March 1823 in Surrey Street, Strand, London, was eldest son of Philip Bell Hayman, clerk in Somerset House (himself son of Henry Hayman, rector of Lewcombe and vicar of Halstock, Dorset), by his wife Jane, daughter of John Marshall. A brother was Marshall Hayman, barrister-at-law and a member of the staff of the 'Saturday Review,' who was lost on the Alps near Zermatt in 1876. In October 1832 Hayman entered Merchant Taylors' School, and becoming head monitor passed with a Sir Thomas White scholarship on 28 June 1841 to St. John's College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. with a double second class in 1845, proceeding M.A. in 1849, B.D. in 1854, and D.D. in 1870. He was treasurer of the Union in Lord Dufferin's presidency, and was offered in 1845 a seat (number five) in the university eight, but family circumstances prevented him from accepting it. He was a fellow of his college from 1844 to 1855, and received the degree of M.A., ad eundem, at Cambridge in the latter year. He was ordained deacon in 1847 and priest in 1848. He was curate of St. Luke's, Old Street, London, from 1848 to 1849. and of St. James's, Westminster, from 1849 to 1851, and was assistant preacher at the Temple Church from 1854 to 1857.
In 1852 he adopted a scholastic career, and served till 1855 as an assistant master at Charterhouse under Dr. Saunders (afterwards dean of Peterborough) and Edward Elder [q.v.], and became master of the gown boys, a post only once before held by one who was not a Carthusian. In 1855 he was elected headmaster of St. Olave's grammar school, Southwark, and was headmaster of Cheltenham from 1869 to 1868, and of Bradfield from 1868 to 1869. He introduced science teaching at Bradfield and tried somewhat unsuccessfully to compel the boys to talk exclusively in Latin.
On 20 Nov. 1869 he was elected headmaster of Rugby in succession to Frederick Temple [q. v. Suppl. II]. The electors were the trustees of the Rugby charity, who at that date formed the governing body. All the assistant masters but one protested against the appointment. Hayman's conservative predilections were held to be in conflict with the liberal traditions of the school. The feeling of hostility grew when it became known that many of Hayman's testimonials were of old dates, and had been used without the consent of the writers. At first his disputed authority as headmaster was maintained by support of the trustees, but in December 1871 a new governing body, including Temple and G. G. Bradley [q. v. Suppl. II], was constituted under the Public Schools Act of 1868. Meanwhile the school discipline deteriorated, the numbers dwindled, and when a reduction of the assistant masters became necessary, the headmaster resolved on the dismissal of two of his most prominent opponents on the staff, Mr. Arthur Sidgwick and the Rev. C. J. E. Smith. Soon afterwards, on 19 Dec. 1873, the new governors passed a resolution removing Hayman from the headmastership. Hayman did not retire without a struggle. On 18 Feb. 1874 he instituted chancery proceedings to restrain the bishop of Exeter (Temple) and the governing body from enforcing his dismissal. The defendants replied by filing a demurrer. After a six days' hearing (13-19 March 1874), Vice-chancellor Sir Richard Malins [q. v.] decided against Hayman, but left each side to pay its own costs, and admitted that Hayman had suffered a 'grievous hardship.' Although feeling in the scholastic world ran high, his friends urged that he was treated with undue severity.
In 1874 he was nominated by Lord Beaconsfield to the crown living of Aldingham, Lancashire. He became honorary canon of Carlisle in 1884, was honorary secretary of the Tithe Owners Union in 1891, was secretary of King Alfred's League of Justice to Voluntary Schools in 1900, and served as proctor in convocation (1887-90). On 21 March 1892 and 23 Jan. 1893 successful actions were brought against Hayman and other directors of the Canadian Pacific Colonisation Society, by two shareholders, claiming the repayment of their investments on grounds of misrepresentation. He died at Aldingham on 11 July 1904, and was buried in the churchyard there. He married on 19 July 1855, at St. George's, Hanover Square, Matilda Julia, second daughter of George Westby of Mowbreck Hall, Lancashire, and left a numerous family. There is an enlarged photograph of him at St. Olave's grammar school, and an oil painting belongs to the family.
Hayman was a cultured scholar and a fluent speaker and preacher. He contributed extensively to the 'Edinburgh,' 'Quarterly,' 'Nineteenth Century,' 'National Review,' and other leading periodicals, and was a voluminous writer for Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible' between 1863 and 1893. His independent works include Greek and Latin verse translations, 1864, an edition of Homer's 'Odyssey' (3 vols. 1881-6), and the following : 1. 'Dialogues of the Early Church (1) Rome, (2) Smyrna, (3) Carthage,' 1851. 2. 'Retail Mammon, or the Pawnbroker's Daughter,' 1853. 3. 'Can we adapt the Public School System to the Middle Class?' 1858. 4. 'Sermons preached at Rugby School,' 1875. 5. 'Why we suffer, and other Essays,' 1890. 6. 'The Epistles of the New Testament,' an attempt to present them in current and popular idiom, 1900.
[The Times, 2 Jan. 1873, 13 July 1904; Rugby School, Remarks and Judgment of Vice-chancellor Sir Richard Malins on the Demurrer to the Bill filed by Rev. Dr. Hayman against the Governing Body of Rugby School, 1874; private information.]