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, Oscott, he was ordained priest there in 1814 and remained for another fourteen years as professor, prefect of studies, vice-rector, pro-rector, and finally (from 1826) rector, guiding the Institute to rival the foremost in the United Kingdom for the seriousness of its scholarship and the modernity of its facilities.
In 1828 he was named vicar general to the apostolic vicar, Msgr. Walsh. In 1840 he was preconized titular Bishop of Abydos and apostolic vicar of the Northern District, but he traveled to Rome to plead with the Pope to be allowed to remain in charge of his beloved College. Pius IX granted his humble request and restored him for another eight years to the rectorship of Oscott, honoring him with the dignity of prelate. W., however, could not avoid accepting in 1848 the office of vicar general to Msgr. Ullathorne, apostolic vicar of the Central District, and later, once the Catholic hierarchy was restored 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.
A preacher of wide renown and a journalist of facile pen, his collaboration was much sought after by British Catholic periodicals. He left no printed works, despite repeated entreaties to commit his mature pedagogical experience to a volume; instead, he preferred to pour out the treasures of his mind and heart upon thousands of young people. Indeed, the finest priests of England emerged from his College, and the future Cardinal Newman was able to extol his great merits in the oration delivered before the bier and published under the title The Tree beside the Waters (London 1859).