WEATHERS, WILLIAM. - Bishop, b. 12 Nov. 1814, d. at Isleworth 4 Mar. 1895.
Having converted to Catholicism after his father’s death, he was educated by the Franciscans at Baddesley. Ordained priest in 1838, he entered Old Hall College, where he remained for thirty years, rising through successive offices to that of rector, which he held from 1851 to 1868. His tenure at Old Hall marked a memorable epoch in the history of Catholicism in southern England, for it was under the leadership of W. that the greater part of the young British clergy was prepared after the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in the United Kingdom (1850). An incomparable educator, master of spirituality, and supremely wise director of souls, he formed hundreds of priests for the apostolate, thus becoming the most valuable collaborator of the English episcopate of his time. In 1868 Pius IX summoned him to Rome among the theologians entrusted with the preparatory work of the First Vatican Ecumenical Council and conferred upon him the dignity of domestic prelate; four years later he was promoted to the titular see of Amycla and appointed coadjutor to the archbishop of Westminster, the future Cardinal Manning. While continuing his valuable and intense pastoral activity, W. was able to resume the scientific studies he had cherished in his youth and to publish, under the transparent pseudonym of Amycanus—derived from his episcopal title—a volume entitled *An Enquiry into the Nature and Results of Electricity and Magnetism* (1870).