Walter Waddington Shirley

Prof. Rev. Walter Waddington Shirley (1828–1866) was an English churchman and church historian. The only son of Walter Augustus Shirley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, he was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, July 24, 1828. In 1837, he became apprentice No. 2, second only to the headmaster’s son, at Lieutenant C. R. Malden’s Preparatory School (now known as the Windlesham School), founded in Newport, Isle of Wight that year. He went in 1839 to the school of rugby under Thomas Arnold. His closest friend in rugby and throughout his life was his cousin, William Henry Waddington, later in French politics. In June 1846, Shirley entered Oxford University College, but the following year he moved to Wadham College, where he received a scholarship and became president of the Oxford Union. He received first grade at the School of Honor of Mathematics in 1851, and in 1852 was elected a member of his college. He was supposed to free his partnership three years later, after the death of his mother, when he inherited small land ownership. From 1855 to 1863, he was a mentor and teacher of mathematics at Wadham. It was during this period that he began historical research. His theological views have undergone significant changes; Shirley's position at the time of his death was still temporary. As an apprentice of Arnold in his early years, he eventually began to consider "non-dogmatic Christianity" as a contradiction in terms. In May 1863, he preached at the university church a sermon on the groundlessness of the teachings of Arnold. Later that year, he was appointed professor of church history and the canon of the Church of Christ at Oxford. He was one of the pioneers of the university expansion movement and participated in the creation of the Kebl College. His career ended at the age of thirty-eight. He died on November 20, 1866.