RICHARD

See also:

• RICHARD CONGREVE (1818-1899)
• CONGREVE, SIR WILLIAM
• CONGREVE, WILLIAM (167o-1729)

CONGREVE (1818-1899)  , English Positivist, was born at Leamington on the 4th of September 1818, and was educated at Rugby under Dr Arnold, who is said to have expressed a higher opinion of him than of any other pupil . After taking first-class honours at Oxford and gaining a fellowship at Wadham College, he spent some time as a master at Rugby, but returned to Oxford as a tutor . Soon after the revolution of 1848 he visited Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Barthelemy St Hilaire and Auguste Comte . He was so attracted by the Positive philosophy that he resigned his fellowship in 1855, and devoted the remainder of his life to the propagation of the Positive philosophy . He took a leading part in the work carried on in Chapel Street, Lamb's Conduit Street . In 1878 he declined to admit the authority of Pierre Laffitte, Comte's official successor, and the result was a split in the ranks of English Positivism, Frederic Harrison, Dr J . H . Bridges and Professor E . Beesly forming a separate society at Newton Hall, Fetter Lane . Congreve translated several of Comte's works, and in 1874 published a large volume of essays, in which he advocated Comte's view that it was the duty of Great Britain to renounce her foreign possessions . He was a man of high character, courtly manners and great intellectual capacity . He died at Hampstead on the 5th of July 1899 .