Author: Waddington, George
Biography:
WADDINGTON, George (1793-1869: ODNB)
He was born on 7 Sept. 1793, the son of the Rev. George Waddington (1753-1824), Rector of Tuxford, Nottinghamshire, and his wife Anne Dollond (1763-1827), who was the daughter of Peter Dollond, a London optician. They had married in London in 1790 and went on to have at least five children: Louisa, George, Ann, Horatio, Clara (Julia). Their elder son was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity Cambridge, where he was admitted pensioner on 26 Mar 1810. He won a number of prizes including the Chancellor’s Medal (for Poetry) with Columbus (1813). He graduated BA (1815), was elected minor fellow (1817) and proceeded to MA (1818). Prior to entering the church, he published (with Barnard Hanbury) Journal of a Visit to Some Parts of Ethiopia (1822), which he also illustrated. He also wrote A Visit to Greece in 1823 and 1824 (1825). He was ordained in 1826 and his college presented him with the livings of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge (1833), and Masham and Kirby Malzeard, Yorkshire (1834). He was prebendary at Chichester Cathedral (1833-41) and became Dean of Durham (1840-69). He also became Warden of Durham University in 1862. He published an array of ecclesiastical histories--on the Greek church, the early church, and a continuation dealing with the continental Reformation--together with various sermons. These were quite highly regarded in their day but will have few modern readers. In addition to his involvement with Durham University, he also published Three Lectures on National Education (1845) and An Inaugural Address on the opening of the Mechanics' Institute at Gateshead (1848), both worth another look. He died on 20 July 1869 and was buried in the cathedral yard. He left an estate of £60,000 with his unmarried sisters, Ann and Clara, as executors and major beneficiaries. In 1870 they gave Cambridge £3000 to set up the Waddington classical scholarship in their brothers’ memory. (ODNB 19 Nov. 2020; CCEd; Alan Klottrup, George Waddington [1990]; ancestry.co.uk 19 Nov. 2020; CCEd; Durham County Advertiser 29 Oct. 1869) AA