Today (1 April)the Church celebrates the life and ministry of Frederick Denison Maurice.

Frederick was born into a Unitarian family in 1805, Frederick Maurice became an Anglican in his twenties and was then ordained.

He was one of the founders of the Christian Socialist Movement, in which his particular concern was providing education for working men.

As a theologian, Maurice’s ideas on Anglican comprehensiveness have remained influential. His best-remembered book, The Kingdom of Christ, demonstrated his philosophical approach to theology. His radicalism was revealed in his attack on traditional concepts of hell in Theological Essays, which cost him his Professorship at King’s College, London, in 1853.

In 1866, however, he was given a Chair at Cambridge, which he held until his death on this day in 1872.