The Oxford or Tractarian Movement

The Oxford or Tractarian Movement began in 1833, when a number of Oxford University professors endeavored to start a reform movement within the established Church of England. Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Henry Newman were the acknowledged leaders and their Tracts for the Times, a series of 90 theological publications, varying in length from a few pages to book-length, soon attracted the attention of the entire country. Other well-known Tractarians included John Keble, Charles Marriott, Richard Froude, Robert Wilberforce, Isaac Williams ND and William Palmer. All except Williams and Palmer were fellows of Oriel College, Oxford.

The Tractarians drew their inspiration from the works of the ancient Church Fathers which naturally led the to the Roman Catholic Church. Pusey and his adherents, refused any union with the true Church; Newman, however, made a complete submission to Rome in 1845. His example was followed by:

Thomas William Allies, ecclesiastical historian and Anglican priest;

Edward Badeley, ecclesiastical lawyer;

Robert Hugh Benson, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, novelist and monsignor;

John Chapman, patristic scholar and Roman Catholic priest;

Augusta Theodosia Drane, writer and Dominican prioress;

Cecil Chetwynd Kerr, Marchioness of Lothian, church founder and philanthropist;

Frederick William Faber, theologian, hymn writer, Oratorian and Roman Catholic priest;

Robert Stephen Hawker, poet and Anglican priest (became a Roman Catholic on his deathbed);

James Hope-Scott, barrister and Tractarian (received with Manning);

Gerard Manley Hopkins, poet and Jesuit priest;

Ronald Knox, Biblical text translator and Anglican priest;

Thomas Cooper Makinson, Anglican priest;

Henry Edward Manning, later Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster;

St. George Jackson Mivart, biologist (later interdicted by Cardinal Herbert Vaughan);

John Brande Morris, Orientalist, eccentric and Roman Catholic priest;

Augustus Pugin, architect;

Richard Sibthorp, Anglican and Roman Catholic priest (the first to convert, in 1841; later reconverted to Anglicanism;

William Gowan Todd, Roman Catholic priest;

William George Ward, theologian;

Robert Wilberforce, Author. Robert was regarded as one of the greatest scholars of the Oxford Movement and his knowledge of Christian doctrine not easily matched by his contemporaries.[1] He was the second son of abolitionist William Wilberforce. He was preparing for his (Roman Catholic) ordination when he died at Albano in central Italy on 3 February 1857. He is buried in Rome at the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, near the Pantheon. 

Within a few years the number of converts swelled to many thousands; several hundreds of these had been Anglican Ministers.

The chief result of the Oxford Movement was to dispel much of the deep-seated prejudices that existed at that time not only in England but throughout the English speaking world. In 1850, Pope Pius IX reestablished the Catholic hierarchy which had been suppressed for three hundred years, and Nicholas Patrick Stephen Cardinal Wiseman was created Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

The Tracts for the Times, 1833-1841[2]

[1] Conrad, Burkhard (2016). “The politics of a conversion – the case of Robert Isaac Wilberforce“. International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church. 16 (3): 184.

[2] From Appendix in: H. P. Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey. Vol. III. London: Longman, Green, 1894, pp. 473-480.