Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Hessey, The Ven. James Augustus
HESSEY, The Ven. James Augustus, D.C.L., eldest son of J. A. Hessey, Esq., born in London in 1814, was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and went to St. John's College, Oxford, of which ho was for some years a resident fellow and lecturer. He graduated B.A. in 1836, taking a first-class in Literis Humanioribus; was appointed Public Examiner in 1842, and Select Preacher in his University in 1849. From 1845 to 1870 he was Head Master of Merchant Taylors' School, and from 1850 to 1879 Preacher of Gray's Inn. In 1860 he preached the Bampton Lectures at Oxford, the subject being "Sunday, its Origin, History, and Present Obligation considered," of which four editions have been published. He has also written "Schemata Rhetorica," "A Scripture Argument against permitting Marriage with a Wife's Sister," "Biographies of the Kings of Judah," several small pamphlets and sermons, and some articles in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible." In 1860 Dr. Hessey was appointed by Dr. Tait, Bishop of London, to the Prebendal stall of Oxgate, in St. Paul's Cathedral, which he resigned in 1875; in 1865 was elected to the office of Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint by the University of Oxford, and, on the expiration of the two years' tenure, was elected in 1867 for two years more. At Christmas, 1870, Dr. Hessey resigned the Head Mastership of Merchant Taylors' School, having a few weeks previously been appointed by Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London, one of his lordship's examining chaplains. In Nov., 1870, he was nominated to preach the Boyle Lecture for 1871 and the two following years his subject being "The Moral Treatment of Unbelief." His lectures have been published by the S. P. C. K. under the title of "Moral Difficulties connected with the Bible," of which many thousand copies have been sold in England and America. From 1872 to 1874 he was Classical Examiner for the Indian Civil Service. Dr. Hessey was appointed Archdeacon of Middlesex in June, 1875, and has published his six annual "Charges to his Clergy and Churchwardens." He is a Governor of St. Paul's, Highgate, and Repton Schools, and in 1878 and 1879 was Select Preacher in the University of Cambridge. Dr. Hessey is one of the three permanent chairmen of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and is an active member of nearly all the Church Societies. He has also, both by his writings and his personal efforts, taken a great part in resisting proposals for altering the laws of marriage.