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 John Mason
Neale was born in London in 1818, studied at Cambridge, and was ordained to
the priesthood in 1842. He was offered a parish, but chronic ill health,
which was to continue throughout his life, prevented him from taking it. In
1846 he was made warden of Sackville College, a position he held for the
rest of his life. Sackville College was not an educational institution, but
an almshouse, a charitable residence for the poor.
In 1854 Neale co-founded the Sisterhood of St. Margaret, an order of women
in the Anglican Church dedicated to nursing the sick. Many Anglicans in his
day, however, were very suspicious of anything suggestive of Roman
Catholicism. Only nine years earlier, John H. Newman had encouraged Romish
practices in the Anglican Church, and had ended up joining the Romanists
himself. This encouraged the suspicion that anyone like Neale was an agent
of the Vatican, assigned to destroy the Anglican Church by subverting it
from within. Once Neale was attacked and mauled at a funeral of one of the
Sisters. From time to time unruly crowds threatened to stone him or to burn
his house. He received no honor or preferment in England, and his doctorate
was bestowed by an American college (Trinity College, Hartford,
Connecticut). However, his basic goodness eventually won the confidence of
many who had fiercely opposed him, and the Sisterhood of St. Margaret
survived and prospered.
Neale translated the Eastern liturgies into English, and wrote a mystical
and devotional commentary on the Psalms. However, he is best known as a hymn
writer and translator, having enriched English hymnody with many ancient and
mediaeval hymns translated from Latin and Greek.
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