WEST CHESTER, a borough and the county-seat of Chester county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., about 20 m. W. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 8028; (1900) 9524, of whom 566 were foreign-born and 1777 were negroes; (1910 census) 11,767. West Chester is served directly by the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington railways and by an interurban electric line to Philadelphia, electric lines connect with the Philadelphia & Reading at Lenape, 4 m. to the south-west, and at Coatesville, 10 m. to the west. The borough lies about 450 ft. above sea-level in an undulating country. At West Chester are the West Chester State Normal School (1871), the Darlington Seminary (non-sectarian; for girls), founded in 1851 by Smedley Darlington (1827–1899; principal of the school in 1851–1861 and a representative in Congress in 1887–1891), the Friends’ Graded School and the Friends’ (Orthodox) Select School. There are fine botanical gardens in Marshall Square. Among the public buildings are a county court house (1847–1848), a county jail and a county hospital (1892–1893), the public library and a large Y.M.C.A. building. The colonial Turk’s Head Hotel here has been so called since 1768 and was probably first opened in 1762. West Chester is in a farming country with important market gardens and dairy farms; among its manufactures arc dairy implements, foundry and machine-shop products and carriage and wagon materials. The factory product in 1905 was valued at $2,121,185. There are several large nursery farms here. West Chester was first settled in 1713, succeeded Chester as the county-seat in 1784–1786, and was incorporated as a town in 1788 and as a borough in 1799. During the War of Independence the battle of Brandywine was fought about 7 m. S. of West Chester on the 11th of September 1777, and on the 20th General Anthony Wayne, with a small force, was surprised and routed by the British at Paoli, about 8 m. N.E.
WESTCOTT, BROOKE FOSS (1825–1901), English divine
and bishop of Durham, was born on the 12th of January 1825 in the neighbourhood of Birmingham. His father, Frederick Brooke Westcott, was a botanist of some distinction. Westcott was educated at King Edward VI. school, Birmingham, under James Prince Lee, where he formed his friendship with Joseph Barber Lightfoot (q.v.). In 1844 Westcott obtained a scholarship
at Trinity College, Cambridge. He took Sir William Browne’s medal for a Greek ode in 1846 and 1847, the Members’ Prize for a Latin essay in 1847 as an undergraduate and in 1849 as a bachelor. He took his degree in January 1848, obtaining double-first honours. In mathematics he was twenty-fourth wrangler, Isaac Todhunter being senior. In classics he was senior, being bracketed with C. B. Scott, afterwards headmaster
of Westminster. After obtaining his degree, Westcott remained for four years in residence at Trinity. In 1849 he obtained his fellowship; and in the same year he was ordained deacon and priest by his old headmaster. Prince Lee, now bishop of Manchester. The time spent at Cambridge was devoted to most strenuous study. He took pupils; and among his pupils there were reading with him, almost at the same time, his school friend Lightfoot and two other men who became his attached and lifelong friends, E. W. Benson and F. J. A. Hort (q.v.). The inspiring influence of Westcott’s intense enthusiasm left its mark upon these three distinguished men; they regarded him not only as their friend and counsellor, but as in an especial degree their teacher and oracle. He devoted much attention to philosophical, patriotic and historical studies, but it soon became evident that he would throw his strength into New Testament work. In 1851 he published his Norrisian prize essay with the title Elements of the Gospel Harmony.
In 1852 he became an assistant master at Harrow, and soon afterwards he married Miss Whithard. He prosecuted his school work with characteristic vigour, and succeeded in combining with his school duties an enormous amount both of theological research and of literary activity. He worked at Harrow for nearly twenty years under Dr C. J. Vaughan and Dr Montagu Butler, but while he was always conspicuously successful in inspiring a few senior boys with something of his own intellectual and moral enthusiasm, he was never in the same measure capable of maintaining discipline among large numbers. The writings which he produced at this period created a new epoch in the history of modern English theological scholarship. In 1855 he published the first edition of his History of the New Testament Canon, which, frequently revised and expanded, became the standard English work upon the subject. In 1859 there appeared his Characteristics of the Gospel Miracles. In 1860 he expanded his Norrisian essay into an Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, a work remarkable for insight and minuteness of study, as well as for reverential treatment combined with considerable freedom from traditional lines. Westcott’s work for Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, notably his articles on “Canon,” “Maccabees,” “Vulgate,” entailed most careful and thorough preparation, and led to the composition of his subsequent valuable popular books. The Bible in the Church (1864) and a History of the English Bible (1869). To the same period belongs The Gospel of the Resurrection (1866). As a piece of consecutive reasoning upon a fundamental Christian doctrine it deservedly attracted great attention. Its width of view and its recognition of the claims of historical science and pure reason were thoroughly characteristic of Westcott’s mode of discussing a theological question. At the time when the book appeared his method of apologetic showed both courage and originality, but the excellence of the work is impaired by the difficulty of the style.
In 1865 he took his B.D., and in 1870 his D.D. He received in later years the honorary degrees of D.C.L. from Oxford (1881) and of D.D. from Edinburgh (1883). In 1865 Westcott was appointed examining chaplain by Bishop Connor Magee (of Peterborough); and in the following year he accepted a canonry at Peterborough, which necessitated his leaving Harrow. For a time he contemplated with eagerness the idea of a renovated cathedral life, devoted to the pursuit of learning and to the development of opportunities for the religious and intellectual benefit of the diocese. But the regius professorship of divinity at Cambridge fell vacant, and Lightfoot, who was then Hulsean professor, declining to become a candidate himself, insisted upon Westcott’s standing for the post. It was due to Lightfoot’s support almost as much as to his own great merits that Westcott was elected to the chair on the 1st of November 1870. This was the turning-point of his life. He now occupied a great position for which he was supremely fitted, and at a juncture in the reform of university studies when a theologian of liberal views, but universally respected for his massive learning and his devout and single-minded character, would enjoy a unique opportunity for usefulness. Supported by his friends Lightfoot and Hort, he threw himself into the new work with extraordinary energy. He deliberately sacrificed many of the social privileges of a university career in order that his studies might be more continuous and that he might see more of the younger men. His lectures were generally on Biblical subjects. His Commentaries on St John’s Gospel (1881), on the Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) and the Epistles of St John (1883) resulted from his public lectures. One of his most valuable works, The Gospel of Life (1892), a study of Christian doctrine, incorporated the materials upon which he was engaged in a series of more private and esoteric lectures delivered on week-day evenings. The work of lecturing was an intense strain to him, but its influence was immense: to attend one of Westcott’s lectures—even to watch him lecturing—was an experience which lifted and solemnized many a man to whom the references to Origen or Rupert of Deutz were almost ludicrously unintelligible. Between the years 1870 and 1881 Westcott was also continually engaged in work for the revision of the New Testament, and, simultaneously, in the preparation of a new text in conjunction with Hort. The years in which Westcott, Lightfoot and Hort could thus meet frequently and naturally for the discussion of the work in which they were all three so deeply engrossed formed a happy and privileged period in their lives. In the year 1881 there appeared the famous Westcott and Hort text of the New Testament, upon which had been expended nearly thirty years of incessant labour. The reforms in the regulations for degrees in divinity, the formation and first revision of the new theological tripos,
