Lewis Carroll had been destined for the priesthood from an early age, and had been expected to take Holy orders as his father had before him. More than this, it was a rule of his college (Christ Church, Oxford), that all Students (the equivalent of dons) had to become priests as a condition of tenure. However, at some time between 1857 and 1862, Carroll made the momentous decision not to take Holy Orders. The reasons he gave publicly for this seem implausible (he said, for example, he thought being a teacher was incompatible with the priesthood, which makes no sense since his father was a teacher and a priest), and nothing is known about his private reasons for taking this step. It may be connected with the sense of sin that was apparently haunting him at the time, but whether as cause or effect we can't say. He ought by rights to have lost his job as a result of his failure to take orders, but for reasons we do not presently know, the head of the college, Dean Liddell (the real Alice's father), broke the rules and permitted Carroll to stay. (see next).

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