Tait, Archibald C

Tait, Archibald C(ampbell)

(born , Dec. 21, 1811, Edinburgh, Scot.—died Dec. 3, 1882, Addington, Surrey, Eng.) English cleric. The son of Presbyterian parents, he became an Anglican while studying at the University of Oxford. In 1836 he became a deacon and for five years he was also a curate at two villages near Oxford. In 1842 he succeeded Thomas Arnold as headmaster of Rugby School, and in 1849 he became dean of Carlisle Cathedral. He became bishop of London in 1856; in that position he stressed reconciliation between evangelical churchmen and those who supported the Oxford movement. As archbishop of Canterbury (from 1868), he oversaw the disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Ireland and the passage of the Burials Act (1880), which allowed non-Anglican burial services in Anglican churchyards.