Benjamin Woolley Dudley (1805 – 28 August 1892) was a New Zealand
Anglican priest in the 19th century.
Dudley was born in
Dudley
Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...
, Worcestershire, in late 1805.
He was educated at
St Catharine's College, Cambridge and ordained as a priest of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
in 1838. He held
curacies
A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy ...
at
Earnley
Earnley is a civil and ecclesiastical parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located four miles (6.4 km) south-west of Chichester, and lies on the south coast of England. The parish includes the settlements of Almod ...
, then
Ticehurst
Ticehurst is both a village and a large civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. The parish lies in the upper reaches of both the Bewl stream before it enters Bewl Water and in the upper reaches of the River Rother flowi ...
. Emigrating to
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
on the ''
Cressy'',
he became the
incumbent
The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position, usually in relation to an election. In an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seeking re-ele ...
at
Lyttelton. In 1876 he became
Archdeacon of Rangiora
The Diocese of Christchurch is one of the thirteen dioceses and hui amorangi of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. The Diocese covers the area between the Conway River and the Waitaki River in the South Island of New Ze ...
, where he remained until his death on 28 August 1892.
Dudley was one of the first purchasers of rural land in the
Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...
district, choosing rural section 40 near Lyttelton. His son,
Benjamin Thornton Dudley, was
Archdeacon of Waitemata, and later
Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...
from 1883 to 1901.
Project Canterbury
/ref>
References
1805 births
Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
Archdeacons of Rangiora
1892 deaths
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