Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Barlow, William Hagger
BARLOW, WILLIAM HAGGER (1833–1908), dean of Peterborough, born at Matlock on 5 May 1833, was younger son (of five children) of Henry Barlow, curate in charge of Dethick, near Matlock, and afterwards vicar of Pittsmoor, Sheffield, by his wife Elizabeth, only daughter of John Hagger, of Sheffield. William, sent first to the grammar school and then to the collegiate school at Sheffield, won a school exhibition and a scholarship in classics at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in October 1853. He took honours in four triposes—a rare achievement (16th junior optime and third in second class, classical tripos, 1857; second in first class, moral sciences tripos, and second class in theological examinations, 1858). He also won the Carus Greek Testament (bachelors') prize, 1858. He proceeded M.A. 1860, and B.D. 1875. Incorporated M.A. of Oxford through Christ Church (1874), he proceeded B.D. and D.D. there in 1895.
Barlow was ordained deacon on 30 May 1858 and priest on 10 June 1859, serving the curacy of St. James, Bristol. When the new ecclesiastical district of St. Bartholomew was formed out of this poor parish and a church built in 1861, he was the first vicar (1861–73). After a brief incumbency of St. Ebbe's, Oxford (1873–5), he was appointed in 1875 by the committee of the Church Missionary Society principal of their college, in Upper Street, Islington, for the training of missionaries. Barlow quickly succeeded in improving the numbers and course of training. In 1883 he helped to collect 18,000l. for the enlargement of the society's headquarters in Salisbury Square.
In 1882 Barlow was appointed vicar of St. James, Clapham, and in 1887 was promoted by the trustees at the wish of the evangelical leaders to the vicarage of Islington, the ‘blue ribbon’ of their patronage. Barlow's tenure of this important benefice greatly strengthened his influence as an evangelical leader. He was made trustee of the Peache, the Aston, and the Sellwood Church Patronage Trusts, which governed about 200 English and Welsh benefices. The annual Islington Clerical Meeting, founded in a small way at the vicarage by Bishop Daniel Wilson [q.v.] in 1827, greatly expanded after Barlow took the management of it in 1888, and it became the rallying-point of the evangelicals. From 1887 to 1894 he was official chairman of the Islington Vestry, and when the local government act, 1894, took away the right of the vicar, the vestry continued to elect him to the chair 1895–1899, entitling him to be J.P. for London.
Barlow, who was made a prebendary in St. Paul's cathedral by Bishop Creighton in 1898, accepted in May 1901 Lord Salisbury's offer of the deanery of Peterborough. Though a convinced evangelical, he attempted no changes in the manner of service at the cathedral, contenting himself with taking the ‘north-end’ position at Holy Communion. He raised money for further repairs in the north transept and the clerestory of the choir.
While actively engaged in the management of the chief evangelical, missionary, and educational institutions, he was a member of Bishop Creighton's round-table conference at Fulham Palace on the Holy Communion (1900); served on the prayer-book revision committee of the lower house of Canterbury convocation which was appointed on 15 February 1907; was examining chaplain (1883–1900) to Dr. J. C. Ryle [q. v. Suppl. I], bishop of Liverpool, and select preacher both at Oxford and Cambridge. He mainly owed his wide influence to his shrewdness in counsel, his knowledge of men, and his ability to draw out opinions from others without parading his own. He died at Peterborough on 10 May 1908, and was buried beside his wife on the south side of the cathedral. A portrait in oils is at the deanery.
Barlow married on 15 Aug. 1861 Eliza Mary, eldest daughter of Edward Pote Williams, of Upton Park, Slough. She died at Peterborough on 4 Oct. 1905. They had three sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Henry Theodore Edward Barlow (1862–1906), was honorary canon of Carlisle, and rector of Lawford, Essex. The second son, Clement Anderson Montagu, LL.D., was elected unionist M.P. for South Salford in December 1910.
[Life of W. H. Barlow, by Margaret Barlow (with portraits), 1910; E. Stock, History of Church Missionary Society, 1899, vol. iii.; E. Stock, My Recollections, 1909, pp. 75–6, &c.; The Times, 11 May 1908; The Times Literary Supplement, 17 November 1910, p. 447; Record, 15 May 1908; Crockford, 1908; private information.]