WHO is the most famous son of Skipton? I would love to say Henry Sidgwick, but I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of him. ‘Famous’ is not perhaps the right word. But Skipton’s greatest son? I think so. Our greatest intellectual? Certainly.

Born in 1838, son of the clergyman headmaster of Ermysted’s Grammar School, he studied at Cambridge. A man of great integrity, he resigned his fellowship at Trinity College because of doubts about the Thirty-Nine Articles.

He continued his work there, however, and became one of the pioneers of women’s education and a co-founder of Newnham Hall. A supporter of gay rights and of religious freedom, he was in general ahead of his age, a liberal when the word meant something. For that alone he deserves to be remembered.

His great work is The Methods of Ethics, probably the most powerful exposition ever written of a system of ethics based on reason alone. Unfortunately, so fair-minded is Sidgwick, so keen to cover every side of every argument, that the end result is heavy-going, which may be why he is now forgotten.

We are now in the last few days of the Christian year, before we begin again on Advent Sunday. A time to look back at our work, and for a humble consideration of what we may have achieved.

Sidgwick’s own realisation of failure at the end of his life’s work is poignant and appropriate: "The prolonged effort of the human intellect to frame a perfect ideal of rational conduct is seen to have been foredoomed to inevitable failure."

A gloomy note to end on? More next week.

Canon Ann Turner

Rural Dean of Skipton