1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hook, Walter Farquhar

HOOK, WALTER FARQUHAR (1798–1875), English divine, nephew of the witty Theodore, was born in London on the 13th of March 1798. Educated at Tiverton and Winchester, he graduated at Oxford (Christ Church) in 1821, and after holding an incumbency in Coventry, 1829–1837, and in Leeds, 1837–1859, was nominated dean of Chichester by Lord Derby. He received the degree of D.D. in 1837. His friendship towards the Tractarians exposed him to considerable persecution, but his simple manly character and zealous devotion to parochial work gained him the support of widely divergent classes. His stay in Leeds was marked by vigorous and far-reaching church extension, and his views on education were far in advance of his time. Among his many writings are An Ecclesiastical Biography, containing the Lives of Ancient Fathers and Modern Divines (8 vols., 1845–1852), A Church Dictionary, The Means of Rendering more Effectual the Education of the People, The Cross of Christ (1873), The Church and its Ordinances (sermons, 4 vols., 1876), and Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (12 vols., 1860–1876). He died on the 20th of October 1875.

See Life and Letters of Dean Hook, by his son-in-law, W. R. W. Stephens (2 vols., 1878).