Robert Mackenzie Beverley

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Robert Mackenzie Beverley (1798-1868) was an author, magistrate, and controversialist. He was born in the town of Beverley in Yorkshire, attended Richmond School, and matriculated at Trinity College, University of Cambridge in 1816. He received the degree of LL.B. in 1821, after which he lived at Beverley, in due course becoming a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant. [1]

Contents

Career

Beverley was born into a Quaker family, but in 1836-1837, in the Beaconite Controversy, he was one of the figures who followed Isaac Crewdson in resigning from the Society of Friends. He was among a number who then joined the Plymouth Brethren. As the Quakers did not practise baptism, he was baptised by the Brethren at Oxford in October 1838; Henry Bellenden Bulteel performed the service. [2]

Beverley wrote books, satires and poems on mostly religious themes, but some on politics, both ecclesiastical [3] [4] and temporal, [5] as well. He made at least one foray into biology with an essay in which he attacked the nascent Darwinian theory. [6] He also wrote some epic poetry but achieved no lasting acclaim. [7] [8] He is mentioned in some other writings of the day; largely in response to his attacks (e.g., in Anacalypsis by Godfrey Higgins). [9]

In 1833, he published A letter to H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester—the Duke of Gloucester was the chancellor of Cambridge at the time—regarding what he believed to be the corrupt state of the university. Much of its content was immoderate to a degree that provoked retaliation [10] [11] and disapproving (including a rebuff from The Times ). [1]

Beverley wrote on a range of other subjects that were often of a controversial nature. He died in Scarborough on 3 November 1868.

Evolution

Beverley was a staunch opponent of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. [12] In 1867, he authored The Darwinian Theory of the Transmutation of Species. The book contains criticism of natural selection:

It is to be observed that the two grand principles of the theory are avowedly metaphors. Natural Selection is a metaphorical expression, and the Struggle for Existence is used in ‘a large and metaphorical sense.’ These are the two pillars of the whole theory ; Natural Selection and the Struggle for Existence represent and express everything that Mr Darwin has to urge ; take them away and nothing remains, and yet they are both metaphors. If these terms are metaphors, they are not realities, but verbal pictures or shadows, and are, therefore, vicious terms in a scientific disquisition. Neither are they only now and then, and by way of illustration, introduced, though even that would scarcely be admissible in handling the great revelation of the existence and origin of beings; but they occur in almost every page [in On the Origin of Species ], to the exclusion of other terms — so that from first to last we are led by a metaphor at every step, as the poor belated traveller is sometimes led by Will-o’-the-wisp into the fatal morass. [13]

Some of Beverley's works, alone or as part author

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References

  1. 1 2 Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Robert Mackenzie Beverley: Correspondence regarding his Attack on Cambridge University, MS Add.4249
  2. ↑ "My Brethren - Memorabilia - R. M. Beverley".
  3. ↑ Beverley, Robert Mackenzie. A letter to lord Henley, on the deficiencies of his plan of Church reform. Sold by Simpkin and Marshall and others 1833 Available at https://archive.org/details/alettertolordhe00bevegoog
  4. ↑ Beverley, Robert Mackenzie. The Posthumous Letters of Rev. Rabshakeh Gathercoal. Publisher: G. Westley and A. H. Davis 1835. Available under the pseudonym at https://archive.org/details/posthumouslette00rabsgoog
  5. ↑ Beverley, R. M.; Philip, John, supposed author; Glenelg, Charles Grant. The wrongs of the Caffre nation; a narrative 1837 Available at https://archive.org/details/wrongscaffrenat00glengoog
  6. ↑ Beverley, Robert Mackenzie. The Darwinian Theory of the Transmutation of Species. Publisher: J. Nisbet 1867 may be downloaded from: https://archive.org/details/darwiniantheory00bevegoog
  7. ↑ Beverley, Robert Mackenzie. The Redan, a poem. 1856 may be downloaded from: https://archive.org/details/redanapoem00bevegoog
  8. ↑ Robert Mackenzie Beverley (1827). Jubal, a dramatic poem . Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  9. ↑ Godfrey Higgins (1 January 2007). Anacalypsis (Volume 1 of 2, Part 2 of 2). Digireads.com Publishing. pp. 496–. ISBN   978-1-4209-2992-8 . Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  10. ↑ A Letter to R.M. Beverley, Esq., from an Undergraduate of the University of Cambridge. T. Stevenson; and Longman, Rees, & Company, London. 1833. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  11. ↑ Francis Russel Hall; Robert Mackenzie Beverley (1834). A letter to R.M. Beverley ... containing strictures on his Letter to ... the duke of Gloucester ... on the present corrupt state of the University [of Cambridge]. pp. 40–. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
  12. ↑ Anonymous. (1868). Review: The Darwinian Theory of the Transmutation of Species. The Athenaeum, Part 4. p. 217.
  13. ↑ Beverley, Robert Mackenzie. (1867). The Darwinian Theory of the Transmutation of Species. London: James Nisbet. p. 46.
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