Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Waddington, George
WADDINGTON, GEORGE (1793–1869), traveller and church historian, son of George Waddington (1754?-1824), vicar of Tuxford, Nottinghamshire, who married Anne, youngest daughter of Peter Dollond [q. v.], optician, was born at Tuxford on 7 Sept. 1793. He was educated at the Charterhouse from 1808 to 1811, and then entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted scholar in 1812. His career at the university was distinguished. He was Browne medallist for the Latin ode in 1811, and for epigrams in 1814, Davies's university scholar in 1813, and chancellor's English medallist in 1813. He graduated B.A. in 1815, being senior optime in the mathematical tripos and the first chancellor's medallist, and in 1816 he was member's prizeman, He printed for circulation among his friends the Latin ode (1811) and his English poem 'Columbus' (cd. Gent. Mag. 1812, ii. 470-1). Waddington was admitted minor fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1817, and major fellow in 1818; he proceeded M.A. 1818 and D.D. about 1840, and he was an original member of the Athenæum Club on its foundation in 1824. He had in the meaneime published (1822), in conjunction with the Rev. Barnard Hanbury, his interesting 'Journal of a Visit to some parts of Ethiopia' (4to), describing a journey from Wady Halfa to Merawe and back. Waddington was responsible for the authorship and for the seventeen drawings in their original state. He next brought out in 1825 a discriminating and impartial account of 'A Visit to Greece in 1823 and 1824,' which passed into a second edition and in the same year. In 1829 he issued a volume on 'The Present Condition and Prospects of the Greek or Oriental Church, with some Letters written from the Convent of the Strophades,' which, when revised, was reissued in a new edition in 185. The letters were addressed to 'T.,' probably Bishop Thirlwall, his contemporary at school and college.
About 1826 Waddington was ordained in the English church, and in December 1827 he preached the sermon in the chapel of Trinity College on Commemoration day. He was presented by his college to the perpetual curacy of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, on 1 Feb. 1833, and on 17 June following was presented by the same patrons to the vicarage of Masham and Kirkby-Malzeard in Yorkshire, being also appointed on 1 Oct. in that year commissary and official of the prebend of Masham. On 14 April 1833 he was collated to the prebendal stall of Ferring in Chichester Cathedral, and held it until 1841 (for his admirable parochial work see Fisher, Masham, pp. 333, 374-6, 433-4). He preached his farewell sermon at Masham on 27 Dec. 1840.
Waddington was installed in the deanery of Durham on 25 Sept. 1840, and became warden of the university in 1862. Augustus Hare described him in 1861 as 'a man of stately presence, living on a great reputation for learning and cleverness.' He died at Durham on 20 July 1869, and was buried on the north side of the cathedral yard. A full-length portrait of him, painted by F. Say at the expense of the canons of Durham in 1850, and a fine marble bust him executed by J.E. Jones of London in 1858, are in the cathedral library. He bequeathed to the library a small but good collection of Greek vases. His own collection of books was sold at the deanery on 20 Sept. 1869.
In 1870, in memory of him and of his brother Horatio (d.1867), his sisters founded the Waddington classical scholarship at Cambridge.
The best known works of Waddington are those on ecclesiastical history. The first of them described the 'History of the Church from the Earliest Ages to the Reformation' (1833, 2 vols.; 2nd edition revised in 1835, 3 vols.) The other set of the 'History of the Reformation on the Continent' (1841, 3 vols.) He also published some single sermons and addresses, and three lectures on 'National Education in England.'
[Le Neve's Fasti, i. 284, iii. 301; Men of the Time, 7th ed.; Parish's Carthusians; Hare's Story of my Life, ii. 265; information from the Very Rev. Dean Kitchin, and from Mr. W. Aldis Wright and Mr. Robert Hodgkinson of Newark; Gent. Mag. 1824, ii. 280.]