WEEDALL, HENRY. - Prelate and educator, b. in London on 6 Sept. 1788, d. at Oscott on 7 Nov. 1859.
After completing his studies at St. Mary's College in Oscott, he was ordained a priest there in 1814 and remained there for another fourteen years, as professor, prefect of studies, vice-rector, pro-rector and finally (from 1826) rector, leading the Institute to rival the foremost in the United Kingdom in seriousness of studies and modernity of facilities.
Appointed in 1828 vicar general of the apostolic vicar Msgr. Walsh, in 1840 he was preconized titular bishop of Abydos and apostolic vicar of the Northern District, but he went to Rome to beseech the Pontiff to be left in charge of his beloved College. Pius IX granted the humble request and restored him for another eight years to the rectorship of Oscott, honoring him with the prelatial dignity. W. could not, however, avoid accepting in 1848 the office of vicar general of Msgr. Ullathorne, apostolic vicar of the Central District, and later, once the Catholic hierarchy was re-established in England, he became a canon in Birmingham. A third time, in 1853, he returned as rector to Oscott and remained there until his death.
An orator of wide renown, a journalist of facile pen, so that his collaboration was much sought after by British Catholic periodicals, he left no work in print, however insistently he was urged to entrust to a volume his consummate pedagogical experience, but preferred to lavish upon thousands of young men the treasures of his mind and heart. Indeed, the best priests of England came forth from his College, and the future Cardinal Newman was able to celebrate his very great merits in the oration delivered before the bier and published under the title The Tree beside the Water (London 1859).
Bibliography
Renzo U. Montini