WEEDALL, HENRY. — Prelate and educator, born in London on 6 September 1788, died at Oscott on 7 November 1859.
Having completed his studies at St. Mary's College, Oscott, he was ordained a priest there in 1814 and remained there for a further fourteen years as professor, prefect of studies, vice-rector, pro-rector, and finally (from 1826) rector, leading the Institute to compete with the foremost in the United Kingdom in the seriousness of its studies and the modernity of its facilities.
Appointed in 1828 vicar general to the apostolic vicar, Mgr. Walsh, in 1840 he was appointed titular bishop of Abydos and apostolic vicar of the Northern District; but he went to Rome to implore the Pontiff to allow him to remain at the head of his beloved College. Pius IX granted his humble request and returned him for a further eight years to the rectorship of Oscott, honoring him with the dignity of a prelate. W. could not, however, avoid accepting in 1848 the office of vicar general to Mgr. Ullathorne, apostolic vicar of the Central District, and later, once the Catholic hierarchy had been restored in England, he became a canon at Birmingham. For a third time, in 1853, he returned as rector to Oscott and remained there until his death.
An orator of widespread renown and a fluent journalist, so much so that his collaboration was greatly sought by British Catholic periodicals, he left no work in print, although he was repeatedly urged to entrust his consummate pedagogical experience to a volume; instead, he preferred to pour out the treasures of his mind and heart upon thousands of young people. The finest priests in England in fact emerged from his College, and the future Cardinal Newman was able to celebrate his outstanding merits in the address delivered before his bier and published under the title The Tree beside the Water (London 1859).