N o .124
N ovember 2017
What does it mean to be human?
The following is an abridged version of a
talk given by Patrick Herring, Deputy Head
(Academic), at the Goddard Day service:
I would like to tell you about a relatively
little-known Wykehamist. He was one of
the most important philosophers of the
late 17 th and early 18 th
centuries and exerted
a significant influence
on European thought
throughout the following
centuries, laying what
many now agree were
the foundations for
mighty Enlightenment
thinkers such as
Voltaire and Rousseau,
as well as, among
others, the German
Romantics. Scholarship
about him, which
remained out of fashion
for the best part of the
20 th century, is now being
revived, in no small
measure because of his
relevance to the modern
age.
was an influential and controversial
Whig politician who was in favour of
the supremacy of parliament over the
monarchy, as well as - in opposition
to the Tories - freedom of religion:
he famously supported the religious
‘Dissenters’ - at first Puritans, Calvinists,
Anthony Ashley Cooper,
or, as he is better
known, the third Earl of
Shaftesbury, was born in
1671 into a prominent
political family. His
grandfather, the first
Earl of Shaftesbury,
1
Quakers, and later Deists. John Locke,
the eminent English philosopher, was
the family’s physician and advisor. He
ensured that the third Earl received a
strong education in the Classics and
became fluent in Greek and Latin by
the age of 11. Locke continued to check
on Shaftesbury’s
progress. When he
was 12, after his
grandfather’s death,
he came to school
at Winchester. At
the time, the school
was dominated by
Tory sentiment,
and because of his
grandfather’s political
reputation it seems
that Shaftesbury
was persecuted by
his contemporaries.
Other than this little
is known or recorded
about his time here.
We know from the
1683 Long Roll that
he was a ‘Gentleman
Commoner’, so we
can conjecture that
he was probably in
private lodgings in
town. And, to put
him into some sort of
architectural context,
he was here at the
time when School
was being built.