Addis, William Edward

ADDIS, WILLIAM EDWARD: Church of England; b. at Edinburgh May 9, 1844. He was educated at Glasgow University and Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., 1866). Originally a member of the Church of England, he became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church in 1866, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1872 at the London Oratory, being parish priest of Sydenham from 1878 to 1888. In the latter year he renounced this faith and became minister of the Australian Church, Melbourne, Australia, an undenominational institution, where he remained until 1892, when he took a similar position at the High Pavement Chapel, Nottingham (1893-98). In 1899 he was appointed Old Testament lecturer at Manchester College, Oxford, and shortly afterward returned to the Church of England. His college accordingly attempted to expel him and to declare itself officially non-conformist, but the movement was proved illegal, and he still retains his position, although the hostile attitude of the trustees of Manchester College prevents him from resuming his work as a priest of the Church of England. He has written A Catholic Dictionary (London, 1883; in collaboration with Thomas Arnold); Christianity and the Roman Empire (1893); Documents of the Hexateuch (2 vols., 1893-98); and Hebrew Religion to the Establishment of Judaism Under Ezra (1906).