Henry Weedall (6 September 1788 - 7 November 1859) was a

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nineteenth century

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preacher, educator and churchman. He was born in

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the son of a doctor. Both his parents died during his early childhood. He was educated at Sedgley Park (1794-1804), and at

St. Mary's College, Oscott St Mary's College in New Oscott, Birmingham, often called Oscott College, is the Roman Catholic seminary of the Archdiocese of Birmingham in England and one of the three seminaries of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Purpose Oscott Co ...

, a seminary near

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, from 1804 to 1814. He was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

a priest at

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on 6 April 1814. He had been acting as a junior master at Oscott, and after his ordination he continued to teach

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

, assisting also in the care of the Oscott mission. In the beginning of 1816 he became prefect of studies; and when Thomas Walsh (afterwards bishop of the district) became president (August, 1818), Weedall undertook the vice-presidency, taught

Divinity Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine

, and had the spiritual care of lay-students and the familia. From the summer of 1821 he had been in effect the president of Oscott, and when Bishop Walsh left Oscott, on succeeding to the vicariate (April, 1826), Weedall was made president in name also. Bishop Walsh named him his vicar- general (14 June 1828), and obtained for him the degree of

Doctor of Divinity A Doctor of Divinity (D.D. or DDiv; la, Doctor Divinitatis) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity. In the United Kingdom, it is considered an advanced doctoral degree. At the University of Oxford, doctors of divinity are ran ...

(27 January 1829). He had been elected a member of the

Old Chapter The Old Chapter was the body in effective control of the Roman Catholic Church in England from 1623 until an episcopal hierarchy was restored in 1850. Origin The origin of the body known as the Old Chapter, dates from 1623, when after a period ...

, 8 May 1827. Under his rule Oscott made noteworthy progress, and the present college edifice, two miles from the old, was erected (1826–38). On the division of the vicariates in 1840, Weedall was appointed Vicar Apostolic of the Northern District, with the titular See of Abydos; Wiseman being at the same time made coadjutor to Bishop Walsh and president of Oscott. Weedall went to

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and obtained leave to decline the vicariate. He was then "in the desert" (head of the preparatory school at Old Oscott, 1841–43, rector at Leamington, 1843-8), until Bishop Ullathorne came to the Central District (August, 1848). Weedall was named as vicar-general, dean of the cathedral church, and temporal administrator of the district and the two colleges. In 1852 he became the first provost of the newly erected

Chapter. (On 2 July 1853, he returned to Oscott in its hour of difficulty, sent ''"to renew that peculiar spirit of ecclesiastical piety and discipline within its walls with which his character imbued it from the first"'', and, in spite of almost continuous ill health, he was entirely successful. He died at Oscott on 7 November 1859, aged 71, and was interred underneath the college's chapel. In 1854 he had been made a domestic

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. Dr. Weedall had considerable reputation as a preacher, and was an occasional contributor to the reviews. The Weedall

Chantry A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or # a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area in ...

perpetuates his memory at Oscott.

References

Attribution

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weedall, Henry 1788 births 1859 deaths 19th-century English Roman Catholic priests Alumni of St Mary's College, Oscott