Edward Bouverie Pusey

Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford and a leader of the Oxford Movement1800 – 1882Also: E. B. Pusey

Professor of Hebrew and canon of Christ Church, Oxford, who joined the writers of the Tracts for the Times, was suspended from university preaching in 1843, and stayed in the Church of England when Newman left it.

Pusey was born at Pusey House in Berkshire on 22 August 1800 (Liddon, Life of Pusey vol. 1, ch. 1). John Henry Newman says that Pusey’s tract on fasting appeared in the series with the date 21 December 1833, that he was fully part of the movement from 1835 and 1836, when he published his tract on baptism and started the Library of the Fathers, and that as a professor and canon of Christ Church he gave the movement “a position and a name” (Newman, Apologia ch. 2, pp. 60–62).

On 14 May 1843 he preached before the university on the Eucharist (Liddon, Life of Pusey vol. 2, ch. 29). The vice-chancellor, with six doctors of divinity, found that he had taught things contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England and on 2 June suspended him from preaching within the university for two years (Liddon, Life of Pusey vol. 2, ch. 29). His Life says that the claims of the catholic church, which led Newman to Rome, kept Pusey steadfast in the Anglican communion (Liddon, Life of Pusey vol. 4, ch. 5). He died on 16 September 1882 (Liddon, Life of Pusey vol. 4, ch. 18). See the Oxford Movement.

In the timeline

The Oxford Movement

John Keble’s sermon on national apostasy and the Tracts for the Times call the Church of England back to its claim to be a catholic church with bishops in succession from the apostles. After Tract 90 is censured, Newman becomes a Roman Catholic.

Edward Bouverie Pusey

In the timeline

Primary sources

Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey

Apologia pro Vita Sua