Christopher Wordsworth 1807-1885, Bishop of Lincoln



Christopher Wordsworth; (1807 to 1885) , a bishop of the Church of England, was born October 30, 1807, at Lambeth, England, his father, Christopher Wordsworth, being rector of the parish.

He distinguished himself in athletics as well as in scholarship at Winchester. Entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1826, he won numerous university honors, graduating in 1830, after which he served as fellow, lecturer, and public orator in the college. In 1836 he became Headmaster of Harrow School, working in the school during his incumbency a moral reform which filled many students in the school with enthusiastic admiration. He was appointed a canon of Westminster in 1844, which offee he continued to fill during the nineteen years of his residence in Berkshire as the rector of a quiet country parish, living four months of each year in London, as was made necessary by his canonry. He was appointed Bishop of Lincoln in 1869, which office he held for fifteen years, resigning only a few months before his death, March 20, 1885. He, was a nephew of the poet William Wordsworth, with whom his relations were most intimate. He was a voluminous author, among his works being a Commentary on the Whole Bible (1856-70), a Church History (1881-83), and a volume of hymns titled The Holy Year, 1862. "This last-named volume," says Prebendary Overton, in Julian's Dictionary, "contains hymns not only for every season of the Church's year, but for every phase of that season, as indicated in the Book of Common Prayer. Like the Wesleys, he looked upon hymns as a valuable means of stamping permanently upon the memory the great doctrines of the Christian Church. He held it to be the first duty of a hymn writer to teach sound doctrine, and thus to save souls." Of Bishop Wordsworth's one hundred and twenty-seven hymns, about fifty are in common use.