This remained their home for the next 25 years.Ĭharles's father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England who later became the Archdeacon of Richmond and involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the church. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious rectory. ĭodgson was born in All Saints' Vicarage at Daresbury, Cheshire, near Warrington, the eldest boy and the third child. Instead, he married his first cousin Frances Jane Lutwidge in 1830 and became a country parson. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. He reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He went to Westminster School and then to Christ Church, Oxford. The older of these sons – yet another Charles Dodgson – was Carroll's father. His paternal grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His great-grandfather, Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin in rural Ireland. Most of Dodgson's male ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. ĭodgson's family was predominantly northern English (with Irish connections), conservative and high-church Anglican. There are Lewis Carroll societies in many parts of the world dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works. In 1982, a memorial stone to Carroll was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Scholars are divided about whether his relationship with children included an erotic component. Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, is widely identified as the original for Alice in Wonderland, though Carroll always denied this. He was also a mathematician, photographer, inventor, and Anglican deacon.Ĭarroll came from a family of high-church Anglicans, and developed a long relationship with Christ Church, Oxford, where he lived for most of his life as a scholar and teacher. The poems Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. He was noted for his facility with word play, logic, and fantasy. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ( / ˈ l ʌ t w ɪ dʒ ˈ d ɒ dʒ s ən/ 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer of children's fiction, notably Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass.