Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope

High Church faction

• Mr Septimus Harding is the meek, elderly precentor of Barchester and Rector of the church of St. Cuthbert's near the Cathedral Close. He was formerly Warden of Hiram's Hospital but resigned in The Warden.
• Archdeacon Grantly, Dr Theophilus Grantly, is the son of the former Bishop of Barchester, Dr Grantly senior, who dies at the start of the novel. Married to Susan Grantly, originally Susan Harding, he has three sons (Charles James, Henry, and Samuel) and two daughters (Florinda and Griselda) and lives at Plumstead Episcopi. His sister-in-law is Mrs Eleanor Bold, née Harding.
• Mrs Susan Grantly, Mr Harding's elder daughter and the Archdeacon's wife.
• Mr Francis Arabin, vicar of St Ewold, Old Wykehamist, Fellow of Lazarus College and former professor of poetry at the University of Oxford. He is a former follower of John Henry Newman and adheres to the High Church faction of the Anglican Church. Arabin is sought out by Dr Grantly as an ally against the evangelical faction of Bishop Proudie, his wife and chaplain Obadiah Slope.
• Dr Gwynne, Master of Lazarus College, another ally.

Low Church faction

• Bishop Proudie, apparently henpecked, weak-willed and under the influence of his wife Mrs Proudie and chaplain Obadiah Slope concerning the matters of the see.
• Mrs Proudie, a proud, vulgar, domineering wife, who promotes evangelical causes such as Sunday schools and is zealous in eliminating high-church rituals.
• Mr Obadiah Slope, a wheedling, oleaginous chaplain who has much influence over Bishop Proudie. Midway through the novel Slope decides that he will marry Mrs Eleanor Bold. Formerly Mrs Proudie's ally, he comes into conflict with her over the wardenship of Hiram's Hospital and she regards him as a traitor. The narrator speculates that he is a lineal descendant of Doctor Slop from the novel Tristram Shandy. He has been described as a significant sycophant: "[epitomizing] the lick up/kick down sycophant — fawning with the powerful, tyrannical with subordinates".[4]

Others

• Mrs Eleanor Bold, widow of Doctor John Bold, with an infant son; she is the younger daughter of Mr Septimus Harding. She has three potential suitors, Mr Obadiah Slope, Mr Bertie Stanhope and Mr Francis Arabin.
• Miss Mary Bold, sister of John Bold and therefore Mrs Bold's sister-in-law.
• Dr Vesey Stanhope is the rector of Crabtree Canonicorum and of Stogpingum, in the diocese of Barchester, and a prebendary of Barchester Cathedral. He and his family lived for twelve years in Italy before being recalled by Bishop Proudie on Mr Slope's advice. He has two daughters, Charlotte and Madeline, and a son, Ethelbert (Bertie).
• Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni née Madeline Stanhope is the beautiful younger daughter of Dr Vesey Stanhope, given to inflation of her own status- "her father had been christened Vesey as another man is christened Thomas, and she had no more right to assume it than would have the daughter of a Mr Josiah Jones to call herself Mrs Josiah Smith, on marrying a man of the latter name"; her card bears "a bright gilt coronet", despite the fact that her husband, Paulo Neroni, "had had not the faintest title to call himself a scion of even Italian nobility". Lamed by her abusive Italian husband, she is disabled and needs to be carried around the house on a sofa, although this does not stop her constantly flirting with men. She has a young daughter, Julia, whom she calls “the last of the Neros.”
• Ethelbert "Bertie" Stanhope is the only son of Dr Vesey Stanhope. An idling, carefree man who never settles down, he is a gifted artist, who borrows and spends a great deal and earns nothing. His sister Charlotte advises him to woo the rich and beautiful widow Eleanor Bold.
• Charlotte Stanhope is the polymath elder daughter of Dr Vesey Stanhope; she challenges Eleanor Bold to comment on the theological arguments concerning intelligent life on other worlds as presented by William Whewell and David Brewster.[5] She is the manager of the family and a good friend of Eleanor Bold until Eleanor realises Charlotte is the primary instigator of her brother wooing her.
• Mr Quiverful, a poor clergyman with 14 children who becomes the new Warden of Hiram's Hospital.[a]
• Mrs Letty Quiverful, his wife.
• Wilfred Thorne, the squire of St Ewold's. A bachelor of about fifty who comes under the charms of Signora Neroni.
• Miss Monica Thorne, Wilfred's spinster sister of about sixty, who is an extreme traditionalist. She holds a garden party at their family residence, Ullathorne, for the notables of Barsetshire.