author
Walter Farquhar Hook
1798–1875
A leading Victorian churchman, he became best known as the energetic Vicar of Leeds, where he helped reshape both the city’s church life and its social institutions. Later, as Dean of Chichester, he carried that same sense of duty into one of England’s historic cathedrals.
1 Audiobook
A church dictionary
by Walter Farquhar Hook
About the author
Born in London on March 13, 1798, Walter Farquhar Hook was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, and went on to become one of the best-known Anglican clergy of the nineteenth century. He first served in Coventry, but his reputation was made in Leeds, where he was vicar from 1837 to 1859.
In Leeds, he was remembered for combining strong church leadership with practical work in a rapidly growing industrial city. He supported the building of churches, schools, and other local institutions, and is especially associated with the rebuilding work that led to the present Leeds Minster. Contemporaries often referred to him simply as “Dr Hook,” a sign of how widely known he had become.
In 1859 he was appointed Dean of Chichester, a post he held until his death on October 20, 1875. His career left a lasting mark in both Leeds and Chichester, and he is still recalled as an influential figure in Victorian religious life.