John Mason Neale, Priest, Hymn Writer
7 August -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Pastors, page 483
John Mason Neale was born in 1818 and, whilst an
undergraduate at
Cambridge, was influenced
by the ideas of the Tractarians. He was a founder of the
Cambridge Camden Society, which stimulated interest in
ecclesiastical art and which played a part in the revival of
Catholic ritual in the Church of England. Whilst Warden of
Sackville College, East Grinstead, a post he held from 1846,
Neale founded the Society of St Margaret, which grew into
one of the largest of Anglican women's Religious
communities. Neale is remembered as an accomplished
hymn-writer and his influence on Anglican worship has been
considerable. He suffered frail health for many years and
died on the feast of the
Transfiguration in 1866.