H. F. (Herbert Francis) Westlake

Herbert Francis Westlake was born in Gloucester on August 3, 1879, and was educated at Christ's Hospital in London before winning a scholarship to Pembroke College, Oxford. He later became a Minor Canon of Westminster Abbey, and the Abbey’s own records remember him as one of its clergy and custodians.

Westlake wrote several works on Westminster and English religious history, including The Parish Gilds of Mediæval England, Westminster: A Historical Sketch, The New Guide to Westminster Abbey, and Westminster Abbey: the last days of the monastery as shown by the life and times of Abbot John Islip, 1464–1532. His writing is scholarly but practical, shaped by deep firsthand knowledge of the Abbey and its history.

He died on November 27, 1925. Herbert Francis Westlake was buried in the east cloister of Westminster Abbey, a fitting resting place for a writer so closely tied to the life and memory of the Abbey.