Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Scudamore, William Edward
SCUDAMORE, WILLIAM EDWARD (1813–1881), divine, only son of Dr. Edward Scudamore of an ancient family, formerly seated at Kent-church, Herefordshire, and nephew of Sir Charles Scudamore, M.D. [q. v.], was born at Wye in Kent on 24 July 1813. Having been educated at a school in Brussels, at Edinburgh high school, and then at Lichfield, he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, as a sizar on 6 July 1831, and graduated B.A. as ninth wrangler in 1835. He was on 14 March 1837 admitted a fellow of his college, whence he proceeded M.A. in 1838. After serving for a short time as assistant master at Oakham school, he went to Minto in Roxburghshire as tutor in the family of Gilbert Elliot, second earl of Minto [q. v.] He made influential friends in the north, and was in March 1839 presented to the living of Ditchingham in Norfolk, the patron of which is bound under an old trust to elect a fellow of St. John's; he had been admitted to deacon's orders by the latitudinarian bishop Edward Stanley [q. v.] in the previous year. His views were largely fashioned by the Oxford movement, which found an exponent at Cambridge in John Fuller Russell [q. v.] He set to work to undo in his parish the result of upwards of ninety years' neglect by non-resident rectors. He restored the parish church, built a school, and raised subscriptions for a chapel-of-ease in an outlying portion of the parish. In 1854, partly through his influence, a small penitentiary, managed by sisters of mercy, was opened in Shipmeadow. In 1859 the penitentiary was transferred to Ditchingham, and, by his strenuous exertions as warden, both sisterhood and house of mercy were greatly enlarged. At a later date an orphanage and hospital were built, and are still carried on. His leisure he devoted to patristic and liturgiological studies, and he published in 1872 his ‘Notitia Eucharistica’ (2nd edit. enlarged, 1876). This is at once a storehouse of archæology and of sacramental doctrine. Scudamore followed the guidance of Hooker and the Anglican divines of the seventeenth century (cf. Herzog, Relig. Encycl. ed. Schaff, ii. 1352). But his high-church sympathies, while tempered by erudition, were blended with puritan feeling. He dissented from the extremer views of the English Church Union, and urged its members in the interests of historical truth to modify their position. When the union issued an authorised ‘Reply’ to his ‘Remarks’ (1872), he rejoined in a temperate ‘Exposure’ (1873), convicting his adversaries of error on several points of ecclesiology.
Scudamore was more widely known by his devotional works, especially by his ‘Steps to the Altar’ (1846), which reached a sixty-seventh edition in 1887, and has been translated into Hindustani and frequently reprinted in America. The writer expressed obligation in the preface to the devotional works of Ken and Wilson and to the ‘Officium Eucharisticum’ of Edward Lake [q. v.] Utterly unworldly, he received only 40l. for the book, in spite of its enormous sale. From Scudamore's ‘Incense for the Altar’ (1874) Dr. Pusey printed some selections in his ‘Hints for a First Confession’ in 1884. Scarcely less popular was his ‘Words to take with us’ (1859, 8vo; 5th ed. 1879).
Scudamore died at Ditchingham rectory on 31 Jan. 1881, and was buried in the parish cemetery. His wife Albina, daughter of John King, died 7 June 1898, aged 82, leaving two sons and one daughter.
In addition to the works mentioned above and several single sermons and small tracts, he published:
- ‘An Essay on the Office of Intellect in Religion,’ 1849, 8vo.
- ‘Letters to a Seceder from the Church of England,’ 1851, 12mo.
- ‘England and Rome: a Discussion of the Principal Points of Difference,’ 1855, 8vo.
- ‘The Communion of the Laity,’ 1855.
- ‘Litanies for Use at the various Seasons of the Christian Year,’ 1860.
- ‘The North Side of the Table: an Historical Enquiry,’ 1870, 8vo.
- ‘Ἡ Ὥρα τῆς Προσευχῆς,’ 1873, 8vo.
- ‘The Diocesan Synods of the Earlier Church,’ 1878, 8vo (all the above were published in London).
Among other elaborate articles to Smith's ‘Dictionary of Christian Antiquities’ (1875–1880) he contributed those on ‘Fasting,’ ‘Images,’ ‘Oblation,’ ‘Lord's Prayer,’ ‘Lord's Supper,’ and ‘Relics.’
[Robinson's Mansions and Manors of Herefordshire, pp. 135 sq. (with Scudamore pedigree); Luard's Graduati Cantabrigienses, 1884; notes from R. F. Scott, esq., of St. John's College; Guardian, 2 Feb. and 9 March 1881; Church Times, 11 Feb. 1881; Times, 7 Feb. 1881; Davenport's Scudamore and Bickersteth; or Steps to the Altar and Devotions of the Reformers compared, 1851; works in British Museum Library; private information.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.244
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 158 | i | 15 | Scudamore, William E.: for survives with read died 7 June 1898, aged 82, leaving |