Henry William Wilberforce

Henry William Wilberforce (22 September 1807 – 23 April 1873) was an English Tractarian cleric of the Church of England and then Catholic newspaper proprietor, editor and journalist.

Early life He was the fourth and youngest son of William Wilberforce and his wife, Barbara Ann Spooner, his brothers being the lawyer William Wilberforce the younger and the clerics Robert Wilberforce and Samuel Wilberforce. He was educated by clerical tutors, firstly when he was nine by John Sargent at Graffham, a follower of Charles Simeon linked to the Wilberforces by marriage.

When he was about 15, Wilberforce was moved with his brother Samuel to the Cambridge graduate Francis Roach Spragg, 13th wrangler in 1808, at Bidborough in Kent; Spragg became vicar of Combe St Nicholas in Somerset in 1823. Spragg was another evangelical, and his wife Eliza was a granddaughter of Henry Venn. One of Samuel's contemporaries there was Henry William Soltau, father of Henrietta Soltau.

At Oxford Wilberforce matriculated in 1826 at Oriel College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1830 and M.A. in 1833. He was elected president of the Oxford Union. He graduated with a first class in classics and a second class in mathematics. He enrolled in 1831 as a student at Lincoln's Inn, but remained at Oxford, and won the Ellerton theological prize. By 1840 Wilberforce was for Newman the unique personal friend who took an "affectionate interest" in his inner life. Through Newman's influence, Wilberforce gave up his plan for a legal career, and instead took orders as an Anglican clergyman.

An internal clash at Oriel in 1830 over tuition began to define positions that later gave rise to the Tractarian movement. Newman wished to involve Wilberforce, recently graduated, with Hurrell Froude and Joseph Dornford, as tutors with a pastoral role for selected students. Edward Hawkins, Provost of the college, reacted by vetoing Froude, Newman and Robert Wilberforce as tutors. Newman's replacement was Renn Hampden.

Newman's memoir of Wilberforce listed as Oxford friends of Wilberforce outside Oriel John Rogers and Henry Edward Manning at Balliol College, and Thomas Acland at Christ Church. College associates included Thomas Mozley, Frederic Rogers, George Dudley Ryder, Robert Francis Wilson, and Samuel Francis Wood. In 1832 Wilberforce arranged a curacy for Manning with John Sargent.

Anglican priest Wilberforce was married at St Peter's Church, East Lavington in 1834 by Charles Richard Sumner; who also gave him his first living, as perpetual curate of Bransgore, Hampshire. Newman visited him there, and in October 1834 made in confidence to Wilberforce a first intimation of his possible Catholic conversion. On one occasion William Henry Anderdon, Manning's nephew and not yet an Oxford undergraduate, encountered Newman at Bransgore.

At this period Newman talked Wilberforce into authoring a pamphlet against his opponents in the Oriel Noetics, including Hawkins, Hampden and Richard Whately; at a moment when Joseph Blanco White of their number had become a Unitarian. It appeared anonymously as The Foundation of the Faith Assailed in Oxford in 1835. In 1836 Wilberforce won the Deniers Theological Prize for an essay on the Trinity.

Wilberforce then had two preferments. He was vicar of Walmer from 1841, appointed by Archbishop William Howley; He was, on the recommendation of Albert, Prince Consort, finally vicar of East Farleigh, Kent (1843).

Catholic convert Wilberforce was one of the group of priests who left the Church of England in the aftermath of the appeal judgement of 1850 in the Gorham case. It included Manning, and in due course his brother Robert.

Ireland The Catholic Defence Association was founded in Ireland in 1851, and in 1852, Wilberforce became its Secretary, moving to Ireland for several years. Wilberforce engaged in controversy on Church of Ireland proselytizing. Richard Whately, now Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, weighed in on the side of Dallas, asking if the allegations of "bribery and intimidation" could be verified.

Henry's brother Robert, who died in 1857, had an estate at Ballynakill, Connemara. While Protestant missions operated in the area, land purchases after the Great Famine by Catholics impeded them. Henry Wilberforce bought the nearby island of Inishbofin, County Galway, site of souperism efforts, completing the deal with the 3rd Marquess of Sligo, which involved also a number of townlands, in 1858. Litigation ensued. During the 1870s Wilberforce owned in county Galway, and then sold out to Cyril Allies, son of Thomas William Allies.

Later life In 1854, Wilberforce became owner and editor of the weekly Catholic Standard published in London, changing the name to the Weekly Register the following year. It positioned its editorial line as a "liberal rival" for Catholics to The Tablet, an ultramontanist organ.

In 1864 Wilberforce sold the Register, and began writing for the Dublin Review. After his death, a selection of his articles was published as The Church and the Empires (1874), with a biographical preface by Newman.

Henry Wilberforce died in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 23 April 1873.

Publications The Foundation of the Faith Assailed in Oxford: a letter to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. &c. &c. Visitor to the University, with particular reference to the changes in its constitution, now under consideration. By a clerical member of Convocation [i.e. H.W. Wilberforce]. London: Printed for J.G. & F. Rivington, 1835. The Parochial System: An Appeal to English Churchmen. London: Printed for J. G. & F. Rivington, St. Paul's Church Yard, and Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, 1838. The Building of the House of God: a sermon preached in the Church of All Saints, Southampton [...]August 13, 1839 at the rebuilding of the ancient church of St. Lawrence. Southampton: Smart, 1839. Christian Unity. Tracts on the Church 7. London: James Burns, 1842. On the Danger of State Interference with the Trust Deeds of Church Schools. A Letter to Sir R. H. Inglis. London, 1847. Reasons for Submitting to the Catholic Church: a Farewell Letter to his Parishioners. London: Burns and Lambert, 1851. The Church and the Empires: historical periods. Preceded by a memoir of the author by J.H. Newman. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1874.

Family Wilberforce married in 1834 Mary Sargent, fourth daughter of his former tutor John Sargent. The couple had five sons and four daughters, four of whom died young.

The children were:

John William Wilberforce (1835–1847) name in religion Bertrand, was a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Dominican Order from 1864, when he moved from Ushaw College to Woodchester Priory near Stroud. Ambrose Newman Wilberforce (1841–1842) Agnes Everilda Mary Wilberforce (1845–1890), married 1881 as his second wife Richard Hurrell Froude, son of William Froude. Wilfrid Ignatius Wilberforce (1850–1910) In 1828 Emily Sargent married his brother Samuel; in 1833 Caroline Sargent married Henry Manning; and in 1834 Sophia Lucy George Dudley Ryder, son of Henry Ryder and at Oriel with Henry Wilberforce.