[1][2] He came from an observant Anglican family and according to his biographer he possessed ...a deeply religious spirit from his boyhood ...[3] Cadman showed a precocious ability to communicate his knowledge to an audience from an early age and before his adulthood was conducting catechism classes with young people in his local parish.

[1] After a period as an assistant-teacher he entered St Catharine's College, Cambridge University in 1835, gaining a Bachelor of Arts in 1839 and was ordained as a deacon on 9 June 1839.

[4] Cadman was part of an evangelical movement that was gathering pace in the 1840s and there was tension between the parish clergy and some parishioners who regarded his methods as over-zealous and Methodistical.

Cadman possessed a deep, sonorous voice and had by this time acquired considerable reputation as a preacher of lasting effect.

[1] Villiers gave him responsibility for the proprietary Park Chapel, Chelsea, a district of some 5,000 people where pastoral duties were onerous.

Richard Snape, Rector of his former parish at Brent Eleigh on 30 September 1846 and for next five years he developed Park Chapel into a community centre of Christian culture and influence where Bible classes and lectures were delivered.

The church in 1852 was capable of holding 1,000 persons but on Cadman's arrival was almost empty with its days at the centre of the local community apparently past.

In January 1859 Cadman reported that there was nearly 200 voluntary agents employed in schools and institutions who met for a service at New Year to celebrate the work within the parish.

[13] Cadman was not a man to often articulate his thoughts on paper but at the inaugural Church Congress, held at King's College, Cambridge in November 1861,[14] he gave expression to the system that he had adopted in Southwark.

Cadman accepted Prime Minister Henry Palmerston nomination of him to the important crown living of Holy Trinity, Marylebone, a post he would occupy for thirty-two years until his death.

This included five mission chapels situated in a variety of places and a series of licensed rooms and other venues where Christian teachings were delivered.

[21] A memorial to Cadman and his wife in the form of an inscription on the reredos in the Chapel of St Anselm in Canterbury Cathedral was erected in 1895.