
Bishop Daniel Wilson, 1832
'Daniel Wilson', Bishop of
Calcutta (now
Kolkata), born in
Spitalfields,
London,
2 July,
1778, died in Calcutta,
2 January,
1858.
He was educated at
St Edmund Hall, Oxford (BA,
1802; MA,
1804; DD,
1832); was ordained, and became curate of
Richard Cecil at
Cobham and
Bisley in Surrey, where he developed into a strong Evangelical preacher; was tutor or vice-principal of
St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and minister of
Worton, Oxfordshire,
1807 to
1812; assistant curate at
St John's Chapel, Bedford Row,
Bloomsbury,
1808 to
1812 (where
Richard Cecil had earlier been incumbent); sole minister there,
1812 to
1824; and vicar of
St Mary's, Islington,
1824 to
1832, when he was consecrated
Bishop of Calcutta, and first
Metropolitan of India and Ceylon. He founded an English church at
Rangoon,
Ceylon,
1855, and
St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta, (consecrated
1847). He was an indefatigable worker, and as bishop was noted for fidelity and firmness.
In
1831 he was one of the founders of the
Lord's Day Observance Society. He was associated with the
Clapham Sect evangelical Anglicans, the best known of whom is
William Wilberforce.
In 1835 he was noted for calling India's caste system "a cancer."
Selected writings by Daniel Wilson
★ Numerous sermons published separately and in collections
★ ''The Evidences of Christianity, . . . a Course of Lectures'' (2 vols., London,
1828 -
1830)
★ ''Bishop Wilson's Journal Letters, addressed to his Family the first Nine Years of his Indian Episcopacy'' (
1863; edited by his son
Daniel Wilson, Vicar of Islington)
★ ''The Divine Authority and Perpetual Obligation of the Lord's Day, asserted in seven sermons'' (London,
1831) (in print, from
Day One)
Bibliography
★ Journal Letters (see above)
★ ''The Life of The Right Rev. Daniel Wilson, D.D., Late Lord Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India'' by
Josiah Bateman, 2 vols, London,
1860
★ ''History of the
Church Missionary Society'' by
Eugene Stock, London,
1899.
★ MacAulay, in
''Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay'' appears to suggest that there was a life written by Wilson's successor at Bedford Row,
Baptist Wriothesley Noel (see
[1]), but this seems not to be listed at
COPAC.
★ Andrew Porter, ‘Wilson, Daniel (1778–1858)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
[2]
External links
★
''Bishop Wilson and the Origins of Dalit Liberation''
★
St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta
★
Rev E F Wilson (grandson) family history page
★
British History Online ''A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8: Islington and Stoke Newington parishes'' page on Churches
★
St Mary's, Islington, official history page
References
★ Initial text of article from ''The New
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge'', edited for style, and with additions
[3]