George Edward Biber

George Edward Biber (born Georg Eduard Biber; 4 September 1801 – 19 January 1874) was a German writer who migrated to the United Kingdom, where he became a man of letters and Anglican priest.

Life Biber was born in 1801 at Ludwigsburg, Duchy of Württemberg, to Johann Gottlieb Biber and Anna Maria Gugel. After studying at the Lyceum there, where his father was then professor, he entered the university of Tübingen. He took there the degree of Ph.D., and subsequently received an LL.D. at the university of Göttingen.

For political reasons, Biber left Württemberg, first for Italy, and then for the Grisons, where for several months he lay low in a farmhouse. He then to Yverdun, where he became a master in one of the institutions set up by Heinrich Pestalozzi. In 1826 he accepted the offer of a tutorship in England. He became the head of a classical school at Hampstead, and later at Coombe Wood.

Biber was elected a member of the council of the English Church Union in 1863, and was prominent in the case of J. W. Colenso. He resigned his seat in June 1864, finding unacceptable some of his liberal and Anglo-Catholic colleagues. Early in 1872 he was promoted by Lord Chancellor Hatherley to the rectory of West Allington, near Grantham. He died there in 1874.

On this issue, of the essential meaning of "catholicity" in Christianity, Biber's line was orthodox for the High Church faction of the Church of England. Other views of his were in some ways close to the Tractarians, and he wrote many pamphlets.

Sympathising with the later Old Catholic movement of Germany, Biber carried on a Latin correspondence with one of its leader, Michaelis. It was published as De Unitate Ecclesiæ, et de Concilio Œcumenico libero congregando Epistola;'an English version was called, On the Unity of the Church, London, 1871. He attended the Old Catholic congress at Cologne, and he published a German sermon, Ein Wort der Liebe und Hoffnung, English version A Word of Love and Hope, addressed to the Old Catholics of Germany, London, 1872.