John Henry Newman
John Henry Newman, Cardinal (1801-90). British churchman. He was ordained an Anglican priest and in 1827 was appointed vicar of St Mary’s, Oxford. With other members of the university he started the Oxford or `Tractarian’ Movement in 1833. It attempted to revive Catholic traditions in the Church of England and took its name from Tracts for the Times, a series of articles on the subject. In 1845 Newman became a Roman Catholic. He was appointed rector of Dublin University in 1854 and created a cardinal in 1879. His best-known works are The Idea of a University (1854), his autobiography Apologia pro vita sua (1864), and the hymn ‘Lead, Kindly Light’. In 1991 he was awarded the title ‘Venerable’, the first step towards canonization.