Charles John Vaughan

Charles John Vaughan was a nineteenth-century English clergyman, educator, and preacher whose career joined school leadership with Anglican ministry. After studying at Trinity College, Cambridge, he served as headmaster of Harrow School, Master of the Temple, and Dean of Llandaff. When I Awake belongs to the later phase of that career and records a sermon preached in Llandaff Cathedral on 3 March 1895. Published in Cardiff by William Lewis, the sermon's short form reflects its devotional subject while the full historical title preserves the occasion and place. Vaughan had long experience addressing both pupils and congregations, and this work reflects the public, instructive character of Victorian preaching rather than narrative fiction. His years at Harrow and the Temple placed him in prominent educational and ecclesiastical settings before his appointment at Llandaff. Reading When I Awake within that chronology gives the text a clear institutional setting: it is the work of an established dean speaking from his own cathedral near the end of a long clerical career.