Robert Wilberforce

Though Robert is perhaps lesser known, all were prominent figures within the Oxford Movement and involved in the publication of the Tracts for the Times.

About this time Wilberforce became close with Henry Manning, and they exchanged many letters on theological and ecclesiastical questions.

[5] The effects of which seemed to affirm Robert’s doubts and consequently his conviction that the Church of England was a heretical body to which he could no longer belong with a clear conscience, turning his loyalty away from Canterbury and York, towards Rome for good.

So extreme were his views on the Eucharist that they were considered heretical and once rumours of prosecution began to reach him in the summer of 1854 Robert’s mind was made up.

On 30 August he recalled his subscription to the Oath of Supremacy and submitted his resignation from all his posts to the Archbishop and in October made the trip to Paris where he was to be received into the Church of Rome on All Saints’ Eve.

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.