Identity area
Reference code
SJCR/SJCS/49/2/1/2
Unique identifier
Title
Date(s)
- 1883-1913 (Creation)
Level of description
File
Extent and medium
1 file. Paper.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
William Allen Whitworth was a mathematician and Church of England clergyman. He was born in Runcorn on 1 February 1840. He was the eldest son in the family of four sons and two daughters of William Whitworth and his wife, Susanna Coyne.
He was educated at Sandicroft School, Northwich from 1851-57 and then at St John's College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1858. In 1862 he graduated BA as sixteenth wrangler, he obtained his MA in 1865, and he was fellow of St. John’s College from 1867 to 1884. He was successively chief mathematics master at Portarlington School and Rossall School and professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Liverpool.
Whilst he was an undergraduate he was principal editor, along with Charles Taylor and others, of the Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin Messenger of Mathematics, which was started at Cambridge in November 1861. Whitworth remained one of the editors until 1880, and was a frequent contributor. Whitworth's best-known mathematical work, Choice and Chance, an Elementary Treatise on Permutations, Combinations and Probability (1867), developed from lectures delivered to women at Queen's College, Liverpool, in 1866. A model of clear and simple exposition, it presented a very ample collection of problems on probability and kindred subjects.
Whitworth was ordained deacon in 1865 and priest in 1866, and won high repute in his clerical career. He was the curate at St Anne's, Birkenhead (1865), and of St Luke's, Liverpool (1866–70), and perpetual curate of Christ Church, Liverpool (1870–75). He was vicar of St John the Evangelist, Hammersmith (1875–86), and from November 1886 until his death, vicar of All Saints, Marylebone. He also held a college living from 1885 in the diocese of Bangor, and was in the 1891–2 commissary of the South African diocese of Bloemfontein. Whitworth was select preacher at Cambridge five times and the Hulsean lecturer there in 1903–4. He was made a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral in 1900. On 10 June 1885 he married Sarah Louisa Elwes. The couple had four sons, all graduates of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Whitworth, though he had been brought up an evangelical, was influenced at Cambridge by the scholarship of J. B. Lightfoot and B. F. Westcott, and he later studied the German rationalizing school of theology. He was considered to be a good and original preacher. His sympathies lay mainly with the high-church party, and in 1875 he joined the English Church Union. His ecclesiastical publications included an almanac of dates of Easter (1882), a description of All Saints Church, Margaret Street (1891); Worship in the Christian Church (1899), and two posthumous volumes of sermons (1906, 1908).
Whitworth died on 12 March 1905 at Home Hospital, Fitzroy Square, London after a serious operation on 28 February. He was buried at on 16 March in ground belonging to St Alban the Martyr, Holborn. There is a slab to his memory in the floor of All Saints Church, Margaret Street.
Name of creator
Biographical history
Name of creator
Biographical history
Professor Revd. Alfred Caldecott was born in Chester on 9 November 1850. His father, John Caldecott was a hatter and founder of the Institute of Accountants. Caldecott was his sixth child by his first wife Mary Dinah (née Brookes). His older brother Randolph was an English artist and illustrator. In 1860 the family moved to Boughton, Cheshire and he spent the last five years of his schooling at The King Henry VIII School in Chester. He then attended St. John’s College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1876. He read the Moral Sciences Tripos and he took First Class honours in 1880. He was then elected to a Fellowship at St John's. He was one of the founders of the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club and the first meeting took place on 19 October 1878 in his rooms at St John's.
Caldecott joined King's College London in 1891 as Professor of Logic, Mental and Moral Philosophy. He developed a syllabus with a renewed emphasis on theological issues. He was a lecturer of Logic, Ethics and Psychology to the King’s College London Ladies Department. He became the Boyle Lecturer in 1913 and was Dean of King's College from 1913–17.
In his religious life Caldecott took Holy Orders and became the curate of Stafford from 1880-82, then he was Vicar of Horningsea, Cambridgeshire from 1883-84. He was the Select Preacher at Cambridge University for many individual years between 1884 and 1916. He was the Rector of North and South Topham in Norfolk from 1895-1898 and then the Rector of Frating with Thorington in Essex from 1898-1906. He became Prebendary of St Paul's from 1915 to 1935 and the Rector of Great Oakley in Essex from 1917-1925.
Caldecott was a regular contributor to 'Cambridge Theological Essays' and to the 'University of London Theological Essays'. He wrote several books on philosophical, historical and religious subjects including: 'English Colonialism and the Empire' (1891), ‘The Church in the West Indies’ (1898) and 'The Philosophy of Religion in England and America' (1901). He contributed a paper in 1908 to the Pan-Anglican Congress on Christian Philosophy in contrast with Pantheism, Christian Science, and Agnosticism. He also collaborated with his brother Randolph on the book 'Aesop's Fables' (1883) which contained his translation of Aesop from the original Greek.
In 1910 he made up a deputation with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Louisa Garrett Anderson who were allowed to put forward the case, for women to have the vote, to the Prime Minister.
He died on 8 February 1936, aged 85, in Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire. A portrait of Alfred painted by his brother Randolph Caldecott hangs in the Liverpool Academy of Arts.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Includes
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A printed pamphlet containing the sermon "The Victims of Ignorance and the Trustees of Knowledge", which was delivered by the Rev. William Allen Whitworth on the 28th January 1883 in the Chapel of St. John's College.
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A printed pamphlet copy of the "Proposed Mission to a London District", which contains a detailed report of the General Meeting of the 8th May 1883 and the consequent resolution to establish a College Mission at Walworth. The pamphlet also includes the names of the first executive General Committee for the Mission and a list of subscribers.
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A printed paper, "College Missions to the Masses", by Rev. C.H. Grundy, published in 'Mission Life: Home and Foreign Church Work' (Jan. 1884). The paper includes a commentary on the College Mission of St. John's College, p.16-18.
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A collection of newspaper clippings from 'The Guardian', 'The Times', 'The Illustrated Church News' and others, dated 1883 - 1893, folded into the above and concerning the work of the College Mission.
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An undated, manuscript proposal for the establishment of a scheme for social improvement to form part of the College Mission in a district of London, signed by members of the College and taken from the minutes of the Sub-Committee on the Walworth Club.
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A printed letter of invitation, dated 25th June 1884, to members of the College, for a meeting to be held on the 8th July 1884 at the National Society's Rooms, London, in which the condition and prospects of the College Mission will be discussed.
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A list of subscribers to the College Mission and a report on the annual subscribers' meeting of the 17th November 1884, reprinted from the Cambridge Review.
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A typescript letter to College members, concerning the collection of old, unwanted ties, hats, shoes and clothing for a clothes sale at Walworth, organised by the College Mission, dated June 1886.
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A printed pamphlet for a meeting concerning the Building Fund for the College Mission, Walworth, held on the 1st June 1887.
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Miscellaneous notes, letters and names of attendees for meetings, c.1887-1890.
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A printed programme for the service of the Laying of the Foundation Stone of the New Church, dated 18th June 1888.
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A printed programme for the Order of the Consecration of the Church of the Lady Margaret, Walworth, together with a printed supplementary booklet for the Consecration, both dated 17th June 1889.
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Printed voting paper for the election of candidates to the Executive Committee [n.d.]
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Correspondence concerning the appointment of R.B. Le B. Janvrin as Missioner for the Church of the Lady Margaret, Walworth, dated January - February 1913.