Daniel Wilson (2 July 1778 – 2 January 1858) was an English Bishop of Calcutta.

Life

Born in

Spitalfields Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London and within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The area is formed around Commercial Street (on the A1202 London Inner Ring Road) and includes the locale around Brick Lane, Christ Church, ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, Wilson was educated at

St Edmund Hall, Oxford St Edmund Hall (sometimes known as The Hall or informally as Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any universit ...

(BA, 1802; MA, 1804; DD, 1832); was ordained and became curate of Richard Cecil at, Chobham and Bisley in Surrey, where he developed into a strong Evangelical preacher; was tutor or vice-principal of

, and minister of Worton, Oxfordshire, 1807 to 1812; assistant curate at St John's Chapel, Bedford Row,

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

, 1808 to 1812 (where Richard Cecil had earlier been incumbent); sole minister there, 1812 to 1824; and vicar of

St Mary's Church, Islington The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the historic parish church of Islington, in the Church of England Diocese of London. The present parish is a compact area centered on Upper Street between Angel and Highbury Corner, bounded to the west by Live ...

, 1824 to 1832, when he was consecrated Bishop of Calcutta and first Metropolitan of India and Ceylon. He founded an English church at

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, in 1855 and

St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta St. Paul's Cathedral is a Church of North India (CNI) cathedral of Anglican background in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, noted for its Gothic architecture and dedicated to Paul the Apostle. It is the seat of the Diocese of Calcutta. The c ...

(consecrated 1847). He was an indefatigable worker and as bishop was noted for fidelity and firmness. He also founded

Dhaka College Dhaka College ( bn, ঢাকা কলেজ also known as DC) is the oldest secular educational institution of Bangladesh located in Dhaka. It offers higher secondary education ( HSC). It has Honours and Masters programs as well which are aff ...

on 18 July 1841. It was completed in 1846 with the aid of the Bishop of Calcutta. Wilson founded the Islington Clerical Conference in 1827 in his library. In 1831, Wilson was one of the founders of the

Lord's Day Observance Society Day One Christian Ministries, formerly known as the Lord's Day Observance Society (LDOS), is a Christian organisation based in the United Kingdom that lobbies for no work on Sunday, the day that many Christians celebrate as the Sabbath, a day of r ...

. He was associated with the

Clapham Sect The Clapham Sect, or Clapham Saints, were a group of social reformers associated with Clapham in the period from the 1780s to the 1840s. Despite the label "sect", most members remained in the established (and dominant) Church of England, which ...

of evangelical Anglicans, the best known of whom is

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...

. In 1835, Wilson was noted for calling India's caste system "a cancer". He died in Calcutta in 1858 and is buried in

St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata St. Paul's Cathedral is a Church of North India (CNI) cathedral of Anglican background in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, noted for its Gothic architecture and dedicated to Paul the Apostle. It is the seat of the Diocese of Calcutta. The corne ...

Family

When Bishop Wilson left for India, his son Daniel Frederick Wilson, who was only twenty-seven at the time, took over as Vicar of Islington and served as such for over forty years. Another son became a missionary to indigenous Canadians in the

Diocese of Algoma The Diocese of Algoma is a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario of the Anglican Church of Canada. It comprises nearly 182,000 square kilometres of the Ontario districts of Algoma (from which it takes its name), Thunder Bay, Sudbur ...

in the

Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario The Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario is one of four ecclesiastical provinces in the Anglican Church of Canada. It was established in 1912 out of six dioceses of the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada located in the civil province of Ontario, and ...

. His daughter was fostered by

Anne Woodrooffe Anne Woodrooffe (born Anne Cox; 14 July 1766) was a 19th-century British author. She was best known for her 1824 religious novel ''Shades of Character''. Life Woodrooffe was born on 14 July 1766. Her father was John Cox of Harwich. She married v ...

Selected writings

* Numerous sermons published separately and in collections * ''The Evidences of Christianity, . . . a Course of Lectures'' (2 vols., London, 1828–1830) * ''Bishop Wilson's Journal Letters, addressed to his Family the first Nine Years of his Indian Episcopacy'' (1863; edited by his son Daniel Wilson, Vicar of Islington) * ''The Divine Authority and Perpetual Obligation of the Lord's Day, asserted in seven sermons'' (London, 1831) (in print, fro
Day One

Bibliography

* Journal Letters (see above) * ''The Life of The Right Rev. Daniel Wilson, D.D., Late Lord Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India'' by Josiah Bateman, 2 vols, London, 186
volume 1volume 2
* ''History of the

Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...

'' by Eugene Stock, London, 1899. * MacAulay, i
''Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay''
appears to suggest that there was a life written by Wilson's successor at Bedford Row,

Baptist Wriothesley Noel The Reverend The Honourable Baptist Wriothesley Noel (Wells, J. C. ''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. 3rd edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2008. ''REYE-əths-lee''; 16 July 1798 – 19 January 1873) was an English evangelical clerg ...

(se

), but this seems not to be listed a
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* Andrew Porter
‘Wilson, Daniel (1778–1858)’
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 * Robert Schueller, A History of Chobham, Phillimore -1989

External links

St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta

British History Online ''A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes'' page on Churches

References

* Initial text of article from ''The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge'', edited for style, and with addition

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson Anglican bishops of Calcutta 1778 births 1858 deaths English evangelicals Evangelical Anglicans Anglican bishops of West Malaysia