Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/650

 especially noteworthy. He continued lightfoot's plan of having six or eight candidates for orders to read for a year or so at Auckland Castle. Once a week he lectured to them; for another hour also in each week he presided when one of the students read a short paper, which was then discussed. These 'sons of the house,' as they were called, present and past, including those who had been there in Lightfoot's time, assembled once a year at the Castle. Many of the junior clergy placed themselves in Westcott's hands to decide for them individually as their bishop what their work should be, whether in the church at home or abroad. His old interest in foreign missions never diminished, and thirty-six men in orders went from the diocese during his episcopate 'with the bishop's direct mission or glad approval' to foreign or colonial service.

In his charges, addresses at diocesan conferences, and the like the bishop did not dwell on controversial questions, but on fundamental truths and their application to the common life of the church. He did not collect large sums of money for church-building or church-work; he was satisfied with the organisation of the diocese as he found it. He was preoccupied with ideas which were not always congenial to business men, and he was not invariably a good judge of men's capabilities and characters. Yet the diocese acknowledged the influence of his saintliness, of his devotion to duty, and to some extent of his teaching.

While unassuming in demeanour and in the conduct of his household, he had a keen sense of the respect due to his office. He delighted in the historic associations of Auckland Castle, where he constantly entertained workpeople and church-workers. He was chary of undertaking work outside his diocese, but he presided at short notice at the Church Congress at Hull, oweing to the illness of W. D. Maclagan, archbishop of York, and read a paper on 'Socialism.' In 1893 he was a chief speaker at the demonstration in the Albert Hall against the Welsh Church suspensory bill; and preached before the British Medical Association at Newcastle, and the Church Congress at Birmingham. In 1895 he delivered the annual sermon in London before the Church Missionary Society, and in 1901 the sermon before the York convocation. Of the Christian Social Union, which was formed in 1889 mainly under Oxford auspices, he was first president, and he held the office till his death, giving an address at each annual meeting. He continued to aid the cause of peace and international arbitration. Yet he supported the Boer war when it had become evident that the Boers were striving for supremacy in South Africa.

His literary work, although limited by the calls of his episcopate, did not cease. In the first two years he put into shape the notes of his Cambridge lectures on Christian doctrine, and published them under the title 'The Gospel of Life’ (1892). During his summer holidays also up to the end he worked at a commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, and the portion of it that he left was edited and published after his death. For the rest, he composed little save sermons and addresses; but these cost him no small effort, for he never had a facile pen. Many of them he collected and published in such volumes as 'The Incarnation and Common Life' (1893), 'Christian Aspects of Life' (1897), and 'Lessons from Work' (1901). In 1898, when dedicating a memorial to Christina Rossetti in Christ Church, Woburn Square, he gave a careful and sympathetic appreciation of her character and poetry.

On 28 May 1901 his wife died; but in the weeks following this bereavement the bishop fulfilled his public engagements. He preached with great apparent vigour at the miners' service in Durham Cathedral on Saturday, 20 July. But his strength was giving way, and he died on 27 July. He was buried beside his wife in the chapel of Auckland Castle. It was his express wish that there should be no subscription for a memorial to him.

A lifelike portrait of Westcott, painted in 1889 by Sir W. B. Richmond, is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The artist wrote of his 'countenance so mobile, so flashing, so tender and yet so strong.' His old friend Llewelyn Davies recalled that as an undergraduate 'he had the intensity which was always noticed in him, rather feminine than robust, ready at any moment to lighten into vivid looks and utterance.' His figure was spare and rather below middle height; his movements were rapid and energetic.

Westcott married in 1852 Sarah Louisa Mary, elder daughter of Thomas Whithard of Kingsdown, Bristol, the sister of an old schoolfellow. He had seven sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Frederick Brooke, senior classic in 1881, is archdeacon of Norwich. Five other sons were ordained, four of whom became missionaries to India. The youngest of these died there; two (Foss and George Herbert) are now bishops of Nagpur and Lucknow respectively.