Canon Frederick Meyrick (28 January 1827 – 3 January 1906) was a
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
clergyman and author who served as Secretary of the Anglo-Continental Church Society for more than forty years.
Early life
Born at
Ramsbury
Ramsbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The village is in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire boundary. The nearest towns are Hungerford about east and Marlborough about west. The much larger town of Swin ...
, Wiltshire, Meyrick was the youngest son of Edward Graves Meyrick, vicar of Ramsbury, by his marriage to Myra Howard. He claimed descent from the family of Meyrick of
Bodorgan
Bodorgan is a village and community on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales, United Kingdom. According to the 2001 Census, there were 1,503 residents in the now former electoral ward, 72.7% of them being able to speak Welsh. This increased to 1,704 at t ...
,
Anglesey
Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a Local government in Wales, principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island, Anglesey, Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strai ...
, through
Rowland Meyrick
Rowland Meyrick (Merrick) (1505–1566) was a Welsh bishop of Bangor.
Life
Born at Bodorgan in the parish of Llangadwaladr, Anglesey, in 1505, he was the second son of Meyric ab Llewelyn ab Heylin, by Margaret daughter of Rowland ab Hywl, recto ...
, a 16th-century bishop of Bangor. Educated at Ramsbury school, he won a scholarship to
Trinity College, Oxford
(That which you wish to be secret, tell to nobody)
, named_for = The Holy Trinity
, established =
, sister_college = Churchill College, Cambridge
, president = Dame Hilary Boulding
, location = Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BH
, coordinates ...
, where he matriculated on in June 1843 and graduated BA, with a second class degree in the classical school, in 1847. He was
President of the Oxford Union
Past elected presidents of the Oxford Union are listed below, with their college and the year/term in which they served. ''Iterum'' indicates that a person was serving a second term as president (which is not possible under the current Union rule ...
in the
Hilary term
Hilary term is the second academic term of the University of Oxford"Meyrick, Frederick" in
Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
(supplement, 1912)
Career
Meyrick was elected a fellow of his college in 1847 and travelled on the Continent with pupils. Returning to Oxford, he was ordained as a
deacon
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Chur ...
in 1850 and as a priest in 1852. He became a tutor of Trinity College and crossed swords with
Henry Edward Manning
Henry Edward Manning (15 July 1808 – 14 January 1892) was an English prelate of the Catholic church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but con ...
over Roman Catholic ethics. In 1853, the Anglo-Continental Church Society was created, and for forty-six years Meyrick was its secretary. He was a select preacher at Oxford in 1855–1856 and a Whitehall preacher in the following year. In 1859 he was appointed as an inspector of schools and in 1860 gave up his fellowship.
In 1868, Meyrick was given a
benefice
A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...
in
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...
, as Rector of Blickling with Erpingham, where he spent the rest of his life. Also in 1868 he was appointed as examining chaplain to
Christopher Wordsworth
Christopher Wordsworth (30 October 180720 March 1885) was an English intellectual and a bishop of the Anglican Church.
Life
Wordsworth was born in London, the youngest son of Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity, who was the youngest b ...
, bishop of Lincoln (a position he held until 1885) and from 1869 was a non-residentiary canon of
Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...
.J. H. Overton, E. Wordsworth, ''Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln'' (1888), p. 379
Prompted by the
First Vatican Council
The First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the First Vatican Council or Vatican I was convoked by Pope Pius IX on 29 June 1868, after a period of planning and preparation that began on 6 December 1864. This, the twentieth e ...
of 1869–1870, Meyrick visited
Ignaz von Döllinger
Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger (; 28 February 179914 January 1890), also Doellinger in English, was a German theologian, Catholic priest and church historian who rejected the dogma of papal infallibility. Among his writings which proved con ...
at the time of his excommunication, and he also attended and helped to organise the Bonn conferences on reunion in 1874 and 1875. In 1886 he was briefly the principal of
Codrington College
Codrington College is an Anglican theological college in St. John, Barbados now affiliated with the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill. It is one of the oldest Anglican theological colleges in the Americas. It was affiliated to the ...
,
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate ...
. In 1892 he travelled with Lord Plunket, Archbishop of Dublin, to Spain in support of the Protestant Reformed Church there. In 1894, Plunket consecrated Juan Bautista Cabrera, the Bishop-elect of the Spanish Reformed Church, as a bishop, and Meyrick drew up a public address in support of him. In 1898 he resigned as Secretary of the Anglo-Continental Church Society and in 1899 retired as editor of the Foreign Church Chronicle,' which he had edited for twenty years. In 1904 he took part in the controversy on ritual in the church, taking the side of the moderate evangelicals.
Meyrick travelled widely, was fluent in many languages, and was looked on as clever in disputes. He was thought to have failed to gain promotion in the Church of England due to being controversially zealous.
Private life
In 1859 Meyrick married Marion E. Danvers, and they had two sons and five daughters.
He died at Blickling on 3 January 1906, and a window in the parish church commemorates him.
Selected publications
*''The Practical Working of the Church of Spain'' (1851)
* ''Moral Theology of the Church of Rome'' (1856)
* ''The Outcast and the Poor of London'' (1858)
* ''University and Whitehall Sermons'' (1859)
* ''Is Dogma a Necessity?'' (1883)
* ''The Doctrine of the Church of England on the Holy Communion restated'' (1885)
* ''The Church in Spain'' (1892)
* ''Scriptural and Catholic Truth and Worship'' (1901)
* ''Memories of Life at Oxford, &c.'' (1905)
Meyrick also translated standard works of the English divines into Latin and other languages, wrote anti-Roman Catholic pamphlets, and contributed to Smith's ''Dictionary of the Bible'' (1860, 1863), ''A Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Antiquities'' (1875), ''A Protestant Dictionary'' (1904) and ''One Volume Commentary'' (1905).
References
*''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...
'', 4 and 17 January 1906
*''
Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the G ...