Frederick Oakeley (5 September 1802 – 30 January 1880) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

convert,

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

, and author. He was ordained in 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 1828 and in 1845 converted to the Church of Rome, becoming

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

of the Westminster Diocese in 1852. He is best known for his translation of the Christmas carol ''Adeste Fideles'' ("

O Come, All Ye Faithful "O Come, All Ye Faithful" (originally written in Latin as "") is a Christmas carol that has been attributed to various authors, including John Francis Wade (1711–1786), John Reading (1645–1692), King John IV of Portugal (1604–1656), and a ...

") from Latin into English.

Early life

The youngest child of

Sir Charles Oakeley, 1st Baronet Sir Charles Oakeley, 1st Baronet (27 February 1751 – 7 September 1826) was an English administrator. He married Helena Beatson, a talented amateur artist, and niece of notable Scottish portrait painter Catherine Read. He was the father of Fre ...

, he was born on 5 September 1802 at the Abbey House, Shrewsbury. In 1810 his family moved to the bishop's palace at

Lichfield Lichfield () is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated roughly south-east of the county town of Stafford, south-east of Rugeley, north-east of Walsall, north-west of Tamworth and south-west o ...

. Poor health prevented his leaving home for school, but in his fifteenth year he was sent to

Charles Sumner Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811March 11, 1874) was an American statesman and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in the state and a leader of th ...

for tuition. In June 1820 he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford; he gained a second class in '' Literae humaniores'' in 1824. After graduating B.A. he won the Chancellor's Latin and English prize essays in 1825 and 1827 respectively, and the Ellerton theological prize, also in 1827. In 1827 he was ordained, and was elected to a chaplain fellowship at

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...

. In 1830 he became tutor and catechetical lecturer at Balliol, and a prebendary of Lichfield on Bishop

Henry Ryder Henry Dudley Ryder (21 July 1777 – 31 March 1836) was a prominent English evangelical Anglican bishop in the early years of the nineteenth century. He was the first evangelical to be raised to the Anglican episcopate. Life Ryder was the ...

's appointment. In 1831 he was select preacher, and in 1835 one of the public examiners to the university. The Bishop of London, Charles Blomfield; appointed him Whitehall preacher in 1837, when he resigned his tutorship at Balliol, but he retained his fellowship.

Tractarian

During his residence at Balliol as chaplain-fellow (from 1827) Oakeley became connected with the

tractarian movement The Oxford Movement was a movement of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of O ...

. Partly under the influence of

William George Ward William George Ward (21 March 1812 – 6 July 1882) was an English theologian and mathematician. A Roman Catholic convert, his career illustrates the development of religious opinion at a time of crisis in the history of English religious though ...

, he had grown dissatisfied with evangelicalism, and in the preface to his first volume of ''Whitehall Sermons'' (1837) he avowed himself a member of the new Oxford school. In 1839 he became incumbent of Margaret Chapel, the predecessor of

All Saints, Margaret Street All Saints, Margaret Street, is a Grade I listed Anglo-Catholic church in London. The church was designed by the architect William Butterfield and built between 1850 and 1859. It has been hailed as Butterfield's masterpiece and a pioneering buil ...

, and Oxford ceased to be his home. During the six years that Oakeley passed as minister of Margaret Chapel (1839–45), he became, according to a friend's description, the "introducer of that form of worship which is now called ritualism". He was supported by prominent men, among the friends of Margaret Chapel being Mr. Serjeant Bellasis, Alexander Beresford Hope, Mr Beresford Hope, and William Ewart Gladstone, William Gladstone. According to an account by Mr. Wakeling the innovations of Oakeley's time were limited to the proper furnishing of the altar, a good standard of preaching but little more in the way of ritual.Kelway, Clifton (1915) ''The Story of the Catholic Revival''. London: Cope & Fenwick; pp. 70-71 The year 1845 was a turning-point in Oakeley's life. As a fellow of Balliol he had joined in the election to a fellowship there of his lifelong friend and former pupil Archibald Campbell Tait, the future primate; but Tait had signed, with three others, the first protest against ''Tract XC''. The furore over this last Tract led Oakeley, like Ward, to despair of his church and university; and in two pamphlets, published separately at the time both in London and Oxford, he asserted that he held, "as distinct from teaching, all Roman doctrine". For this avowal he was cited before the court of arches by the Bishop of London. His license was withdrawn, and he was suspended from all clerical duty in the province of Canterbury until he had "retracted his errors" (July 1845).

Catholic

In September 1845 Oakeley joined John Henry Newman's community at Church of St Mary and St Nicholas, Littlemore, Littlemore in Oxford, and on 29 October was received into the Roman communion in the little chapel in St Clement's, Oxford, over Magdalen Bridge. On 31 October he was confirmed at Birmingham by Nicholas Wiseman. From January 1846 to August 1848 he was a theological student in the seminary of the London district, St. Edmund's College, Ware. In the summer of 1848 he joined the staff of St. George's, Southwark; on 22 January 1850 he took charge of St. John's, Islington; in 1852, on the establishment of the new hierarchy under Wiseman as cardinal-archbishop, he was created a canon of the Westminster diocese, and held this office for nearly thirty years, till his death at the end of January 1880, aged 77.

Works

Oakeley published 42 works. Before his conversion were: * ''Whitehall Chapel Sermons'' (1837)
''Laudes Diurnæ; the Psalter and Canticles in the Morning and Evening Services, set and pointed to the Gregorian Tones by Richard Redhead'', with a preface by Oakeley on antiphonal chanting, 1843
Also a number of articles contributed to the ''British Critic''. After his conversion he brought out many books in support of Catholicism, including: * ''The Ceremonies of the Mass'' (1855) a standard work at Rome, where it was translated into Italian by Lorenzo Santarelli, and published by authority; * ''The Church of the Bible'' (1857) *
The Order and Ceremonial of the Most Holy and Adorable Sacrifice of the Mass: Explained in a Dialogue Between a Priest and a Catechumen
' (1859) * ''Lyra Liturgica'' (1865) *
Historical Notes on the Tractarian Movement
' (1865) * ''The Priest to the Mission'' (1871) *
Catholic Worship: A Manual of Popular Instruction on the Ceremonies and Devotions of the Church
' (1872) * ''The Voice of Creation'' (1876) He was a constant contributor to the ''Dublin Review (Catholic periodical), Dublin Review'' and ''The Month''. To Henry Edward Manning, Cardinal Manning's ''Essays on Religious Subjects'' (1865) he contributed ''The Position of a Catholic Minority in a non-Catholic Country''. The last article he wrote was one in ''Time'' (March 1880), on ''Personal Recollections of Oxford from 1820 to 1845'' (reprinted in Lilian M. Quiller-Couch's ''Reminiscences of Oxford'', 1892, Oxf. Hist. Soc.) His ''Youthful Martyrs of Rome'', a verse drama in five acts (1856), was adapted from Cardinal Wiseman's ''Fabiola''.

References

;Attribution

External links