N. P. Williams Explained

Pre-Nominals:	The Reverend
N. P. Williams
Birth Name:	Norman Powell Williams
Birth Date:	5 September 1883
Birth Place:	Durham, England
Death Place:	Oxford, England
Children:	Charles Williams, Baron Williams of Elvel
Module:	Child: yes Religion: Christianity (Anglican) Church: Church of England
Module2:	Child: yes Alma Mater: Christ Church, Oxford School Tradition: Liberal Anglo-Catholicism Discipline: Theology

Norman Powell Williams (1883–1943), known as N. P. Williams, was an Anglican theologian and priest. Educated at Durham School and at Christ Church, Oxford, he enjoyed a succession of appointments at that university: Fellow of Magdalen (1906), Chaplain of Exeter (1909), Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church (1927). In 1924 he was Bampton lecturer.

His 1924 Bampton Lectures were published in 1927 under the title The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin, which continues to be an influential source for students of original sin to this day and was included in Ronald W. Hepburn's 1973 entry on the "Cosmic Fall" in the Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Williams argued for a "transcendental" or "pre-cosmic fall" that occurred in the "life-force" and "during an 'absolute' time" prior to the "differentiation of life into its present multiplicity of forms and the emergence of separate species."^{[1] [2]}

He served as the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity at Oxford, from 1927 until his death in April, 1943. Also in 1927, he became the Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. A collected edition of his works was published by Eric Waldram Kemp in 1954, entitled simply N. P. Williams. On the flap jacket of this edition, N. P. Williams was given this description:

Williams married Muriel, daughter of Arthur Philip Cazenove, of a landed gentry family;^[3] their son was Charles Williams, Baron Williams of Elvel.^{[4] [5]}

Selected works

• The Christian Doctrine of the Last Things, 11 December 1927
• The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin (Bampton Lectures 1924), 1927
• The Grace of God, 1930
• Northern Catholicism; ed. by N. P. Williams & Charles Harris. London. S.P.C.K., 1933
• Deaconesses and "Holy Orders", 1938
• Judicial Authority in the Church of England, 1940
• Sermons and Addresses, Compiled with a Memoir, SPCK, 1954

References

Bibliography

• Encyclopedia: Kemp. E. W.. Eric Kemp. 2004. Williams, Norman Powell (1883–1943). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. online. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/ref:odnb/36927.
• Encyclopedia: 2007. Williams, Rev. Norman Powell. Who Was Who. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U233496. .

Further reading

• Encyclopedia: 2005. Williams, Norman Powell. Cross. F. L.. Frank Leslie Cross. Livingstone. E. A.. Elizabeth Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. rev. 3rd. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acref/9780192802903.001.0001. 978-0-19-280290-3.
• Book: 1954. Kemp. E. W.. Eric Kemp. N.P. Williams: Sermons and Addresses, Compiled with a Memoir. London. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Notes and References

1. Encyclopedia: Cosmic Fall . Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas: Volume 1 . 1973 . Hepburn . Ronald W. . Wiener . Philip P. . Charles Scribner's Sons . New York, New York . 504–513.
2. Book: Williams, N. P. . N. P. Williams . 1927 . The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin: a Historical and Critical Study . London, UK . Longmans, Green and Co. . xxxiv, 523-524.
3. Burke's Family Index, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1976, p. 28
4. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 3, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 4182
5. Who's Who, 90th edition, H. O. Addison et al, A. & C. Black, 1938, p. 3632