Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/715

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WOODWARD, HERBERT HALL (1847–1909), musical composer, born 13 Jan. 1847, near Liverpool, was fifth and youngest son of Robert Woodward (1801–1882), by his wife Mary, youngest daughter of William Hall, of Ryall's Court, Ripple, Worcestershire. The father, a Liverpool merchant, purchased, in 1852, the Arley Castle estate, near Bewdley. Both the father's and mother's families had been long settled in Worcestershire. Herbert, after being educated at Radley College, matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1862. At Radley he chiefly studied music under Dr. E. G. Monk and at Oxford under Dr. Leighton Hayne, and graduated Mus.B. in 1866 and B.A. in 1867. He spent eighteen months at Cuddesdon Theological College, and, being ordained deacon in 1870 and priest in 1871 in the diocese of Oxford, became curate and precentor of Wantage. There he remained for eleven years, working as assistant priest under William John Butler [q. v. Suppl. I], afterwards Dean of Lincoln. In 1881 he was appointed a minor canon of Worcester Cathedral, and became precentor in 1890. Here he formed a successful preparatory boarding school for the choir boys, of which he was warden for twenty-eight years (1881–1909). His devotional character had a great influence on the services at the cathedral, where he raised the standard of worship to a high level. A bachelor, and possessed of private means, he was widely known for his generous philanthropy. He died in London, after an operation, on 25 May 1909. At Worcester he is commemorated by the ‘Woodward Memorial Wing’ of the choir school buildings. As a composer he is best known by his church music. His anthem ‘The Radiant Morn,’ written in 1881, is probably the most generally popular of its kind; and ‘The Souls of the Righteous,’ ‘Behold the days come,’ ‘Crossing the Bar,’ ‘Comes at times a Stillness as of Even,’ and the Communion Service in E flat are also familiar.

[Brit. Musical Biog.; Musical Times, Nov. 1905 (with portrait); Burke's Landed Gentry; Clergy List, 1909; private information.]

J. C. H.


WOOLGAR, SARAH JANE (1824–1909), actress. [See Mellon, Mrs.]

WORDSWORTH, JOHN (1843–1911), bishop of Salisbury, was elder son of Christopher Wordsworth [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln, by his wife Susanna Hatley, daughter of George Frere. His brother is Christopher Wordsworth, master of St. Nicholas' Hospital, Salisbury, and formerly fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Among his five sisters were Elizabeth, first principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and Susan (d. 1912), first head of the Southwark Diocesan Society of Grey Ladies. He was born on 21 Sept. 1843 at Harrow, his father being headmaster of the school, and was educated as a pensioner at Winchester and as a scholar at New College, Oxford, from which he matriculated in 1861. In 1863 he was placed in the first class in classical moderations, and in 1865 in the second class in literæ humaniores. He graduated B.A. in 1865, proceeding M.A. in 1868. He won the Latin essay prize in 1866, and the Craven scholarship in 1867. After a year as assistant master at Wellington College under Edward White Benson, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, he was elected in 1867 to a fellowship at Brasenose, and was ordained deacon and priest by Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford in 1867 and 1869. He served Brasenose College as chaplain. In 1870 he was appointed examining chaplain and was collated to a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral by his father, just consecrated to that see. Though he was from the first interested in divinity, his college work and his studies were chiefly classical. Beside writings of less importance, he published in 1874 ‘Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin,’ still a standard work, though its philology is that of its date. It gave an ample and judicious collection of examples, with a sound and learned commentary, and proved Wordsworth to be one of the best Latin scholars in Oxford. Thenceforth he applied his Latin scholarship to biblical study. In 1878 the University Press accepted a proposal from him for the publication of a critical edition of the Vulgate text of the New Testament, which should reproduce, so far as possible, the exact words of St. Jerome. The enterprise was in progress the rest of his life. Wordsworth at once began to collect his material. MSS. were collated, principally by himself, in all the countries of Western Europe; earlier collations, such as those of Bentley and John Walker [q. v.] were examined; unused material of Tischendorf was purchased; the patristic writers were searched for quotations; readings of importance from one or another point of view were brought together from a multitude of printed editions. Fully a hundred sources