months of 1881 had passed before the Cambridge commission ended its work, and Lightfoot's attendance at its later proceedings was much interrupted. But the larger questions of principle had been settled at an earlier date, and he fully shared responsibility for the new statutes.
In January 1879 Lightfoot visited Liverpool, the place of his early schooling under Dr. Iliff. He gave by invitation an address in St. George's Hall at the distribution of scholarships and prizes offered by the Liverpool Council of Education. The chief theme of this address, which was published, was the recent proposal that a university college should be founded at Liverpool. He maintained that such a college ought to be established in every great centre of population, and that women should be admitted to take advantage of it, the power of conferring degrees being, however, reserved for some central university. In the following year the Liverpool University College was founded.
In 1867 Lightfoot had declined Lord Derby's offer of the bishopric of Lichfield. He had no desire to exchange his own position at Cambridge for any other. But when in January 1879 Lord Beaconsfield proposed to him that he should succeed Dr. Baring in the see of Durham, most of the few intimate friends whose counsels he sought were strenuous in urging that as bishop of Durham he would be able to render increased service to the church and nation; and after a few days of painful anxiety he yielded to their representations. The election by the dean and chapter took place on 15 March, the confirmation on 10 April, the consecration in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of York and seven other bishops on 25 April, when the sermon was preached by Dr. Westcott. On 15 May the new bishop was enthroned in Durham Cathedral, and himself preached a striking sermon (reprinted in Leaders in the Northern Church, p. 159). He was the first bishop after Cosin in 1660 to become bishop of Durham without having held another see.
The two charges which Lightfoot delivered to the clergy of his diocese, in December 1882 and November 1886 respectively, contain abundant evidence of the thoroughness and success with which he devoted himself to every department of his unaccustomed work, neglecting no routine, and making the best of all existing resources, but quick to discern deficiencies and to devise or adopt new agencies for supplying them. His first care was for the division of the diocese, which the enormous growth of the population of both its counties (Durham and Northumberland) within this century had long made a crying need. For some while, indeed, he found it inopportune, owing to commercial and agricultural distress, to ask for contributions to the endowment fund for the Newcastle see. But in the course of 1881 the funds still needed were collected, and on 25 July 1882 the first bishop of Newcastle was consecrated (cf. Durham Diocesan Mag. ii. 144 and 170). Within his own, reduced but still populous, diocese the subdivision of parishes and consequent multiplication of centres of activity, which had been vigorously promoted by Bishop Baring, was carried yet further; the rural deaneries were increased in number, and their boundaries readjusted (July 1880), and the single archdeaconry was divided into two (May 1882). A diocesan conference of clergy and laity assembled for the first time in September 1880, and thenceforth met biennially. For the purpose of increasing the number of churches and mission chapels, Lightfoot called together a public meeting in the town-hall of Durham in January 1884 to start a church building fund, and was able in less than three years to report that above 40,000l. had been already subscribed directly through the fund, besides contributions almost equal in amount called out by it indirectly (Charge of 1886, p. 10); while nearly 224,000l. had been expended on churches, parsonages, church schools, mission-rooms, church institutes, churchyards, &c., in the diocese within four years. In 1886 at his suggestion the diocesan conference established a general diocesan fund, partly to feed existing diocesan institutions ‘connected with the church’ (i.e. fabrics), ‘the school, and the ministry;’ his own contribution was 500l. a year (cf. Durham Diocesan Mag. iv. 14 sq.)
Meanwhile the ministrations of the clergy were supplemented by lay readers for many parishes, and (from 1886) by lay evangelists for several rural deaneries; and in some parishes the employment of the Church Army was approved. In order to increase the proportion of university men among his clergy, Lightfoot from the first made ‘Auckland Castle the seat of a small college of graduates preparing for ordination in his diocese … and his last charge to young Cambridge friends was to “send him up some men to the north.” Six to eight students were always with him, reading under the guidance of his chaplains, and getting some experience of parochial work in Auckland and the pit villages within the parish. They were treated entirely as sons; they were part of the family when visitors came, and he would receive no payment from them’ (Mr. Appleton in Cambridge Review, 23 Jan. 1890). The bond thus
