Sir George Prevost. In 1824 the archdeaconry of Barbadoes was offered to him by Bishop Coleridge, but he declined this, the only offer of a dignity that he ever received, on account of his father's weak state of health. In 1825 he accepted the curacy of Hursley, near Winchester, of which parish Archdeacon Heathcote was vicar; but in the next year his younger sister, Mary Anne, died, and as his elder sister, Elizabeth, was an invalid, he felt it his duty to return to Fairford, and to supply his father's place at Coln.
In 1827 the provostship of Oriel fell vacant owing to the promotion of Dr. Copleston, and Keble's friends were anxious that he should succeed to the post; but the majority of the fellows, including Pusey and Newman (though Newman distinctly said that he could never vote against Keble), were inclined to favour his competitor, Edward Hawkins (1789–1882) [q. v.], so he quietly withdrew from the contest. The death of Archdeacon Heathcote left the vicarage of Hursley vacant in 1829, and it was offered to Keble, but he declined it on the ground that he would not quit his father. In 1830 he was nominated one of the Oxford examiners for the India House examinations for the civil service, and held that office for two years. In 1831 the Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Phillpotts), considering Keble ‘the most eminently good man in the church,’ offered him the valuable living of Paignton, Devonshire, which, as in the case of the other offers, he rejected, on account of his father's health. In the same year he was elected without opposition professor of poetry at Oxford, and held the post till 1841. In 1835 his father died, and in the same year he married Charlotte Clarke, the younger sister of the wife of his brother Thomas. He had known her from childhood, and her father was also fellow of Corpus. The living of Hursley again fell vacant in 1836; it was once more offered to Keble by the patron, Sir William Heathcote; he at length accepted it, and was instituted 9 March 1836. For the next thirty years Hursley was his home, and the record of his outer life is simply that of an exemplary parish priest. Daily services, confirmation classes, village schools, church building or restoration, parochial visiting, correspondence, which continually increased as he became more and more valued as a spiritual adviser, formed the regular occupation of his life. In his retirement he took a deep interest in the affairs of the world outside Hursley, both ecclesiastical and civil. He was a tory of the old school, a cavalier, and a lover of the memory of Charles I; but he adhered to the last—that is, until the Oxford election of 1865—to Mr. Gladstone, on account of his churchmanship.
The death in 1860 of his sole surviving sister, Elizabeth, who divided her time between Bisley (the home of her brother Thomas) and Hursley, closely followed that of one of his oldest and dearest friends, Charles Dyson. At the same time the evident breaking-up of his wife's health tended to shatter him, and he had an attack of paralysis in 1864. Mrs. Keble's health rendered it necessary for them to seek a warmer climate in winter. Torquay, Penzance, and finally Bournemouth were their resorts. All the changes were on Mrs. Keble's account, but she survived her husband. He died, after only a week's illness, at Bournemouth, on 29 March 1866. He was buried in Hursley churchyard, close to the grave of his sister Elizabeth; and six weeks later the remains of Mrs. Keble were laid by his side.
A memorial bust by Mr. Thomas Woolner, R.A., has been placed in the baptistery in Westminster Abbey. But Keble's chief monument is at Oxford. On 12 May 1866 it was resolved at a meeting at Lambeth Palace to raise in his memory a fund with which to build a college at Oxford to give at a moderate cost an education in strict fidelity to the Church of England. The erection of Keble College, which was opened in 1869, was the result. Mr. George Richmond, R.A., painted Keble's portrait in 1863. This picture belonged to the artist, but a replica by Mr. Richmond, dated 1876, is at Keble College.
It seems strange that this shy, homely, unambitious man, living so retired a life, should yet have been the prime factor in the great religious movement of his time. Newman emphatically asserts in his ‘Apologia’ that Keble was the ‘true and primary author’ of the Oxford movement. The explanation must be sought in his character and writings. Keble was from first to last a consistent churchman. The principles which he imbibed from his father at Fairford guided him all through his life. His opinions were not radically changed, though they may have been developed. This gave a calmness and confidence to his teaching which were especially impressive in a time of restless change. In his sermon on ‘National Apostasy’ he says that, ‘as a true churchman, he is calmly, soberly, demonstrably sure that sooner or later his will be the winning side, that the victory will be complete, universal, eternal.’ He was, indeed, by no means satisfied with the state of the church of England as it was, but he gladly recognised signs of improvement, and his tone becomes much more hopeful in his later writings. He
