Oakeley, Frederick

Author

b Shrewsbury, Shrops 1802, d Islington, Middx (N London) 1880. After a private education he studied at Christ Ch Oxford (BA 1824); ordained in 1826; Fellow and Chaplain of Balliol 1827. At Oxford he was influenced towards the young high church ‘Oxford movement’ by Wm G Ward, himself a keen disciple of J H Newman. He became incumbent of Margaret Chapel nr C London’s Oxford Circus (later All Saints Margaret St), in 1839. During his time there it became something of a centre for tractarian or ritualistic activity. But like Newman and Ward, influenced by Prof Chas Lloyd’s Oxford lectures but under pressure from the Anglican authorities, in 1845 he turned to Roman Catholicism. Within 2 years he was re-ordained as an RC, becoming a canon of Westminster in 1852. He then worked for some years in that area among some of its most deprived people. Some of his sermons reached publication, together with other books and frequent articles in the British Critic and the Dublin Review. No.367.