Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rawes, Henry Augustus
RAWES, HENRY AUGUSTUS, D.D. (1826–1885), catholic divine, born at Easington, near Durham, on 11 Dec. 1826, was educated at Houghton-le-Spring grammar school, under his father, the headmaster, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1849, and M.A. in 1852. He became curate of St. Botolph, Aldgate, in June 1851; curate of St. Bartholomew, Moor Lane, in June 1853; and warden of the House of Charity, Soho, in May 1854. In March 1856 he was received into the Roman communion by Father Grant, S. J., at Edinburgh (Browne, Annals of the Tractarian Movement, pp. 345, 545). He at once joined Dr. (afterwards Cardinal) Manning, who about that time was forming the congregation of the oblates of St. Charles under the auspices of Cardinal Wiseman. On being ordained priest in November 1857 he had the charge of the Notting Hill district, where he built the church of St. Francis. He was appointed prefect of studies in St. Charles's College in 1870; was created D.D. by Pius IX in 1875; and was elected superior of the Oblate Fathers at Bayswater in 1879. For twenty-eight years he was well known in London as a preacher and writer; he was founder of the society of the Servants of the Holy Ghost, which was erected into an Arch-confraternity by Leo XIII in 1879, and has affiliated branches in Ireland, the United States, and France. He died at Brighton on 24 April 1885, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Mary Magdalen at Mortlake.
He was author of many devotional works; the chief are: 1. ‘The Lost Sheep, and other Poems,’ London, 1856, 8vo. 2. ‘Sursum; or Sparks flying Upward,’ London, 1864, 12mo. 3. ‘Septem; or Seven Ways of hearing Mass,’ 3rd edit., London [1869], 16mo. 4. ‘Great Truths in Little Words,’ 3rd edit., London [1872], 8vo. 5. ‘Homeward,’ 2nd edit. London, 1873, 8vo. 6. ‘Little Books of the Holy Ghost,’ London, 1880, &c., 16mo. 7. ‘Foregleams of the Desired: Sacred Verses, Hymns, and Translations,’ 3rd edit., London, 1881, 16mo.
[Men of the Time, 1884; Tablet, 2 May 1885, p. 703.]