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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Wellington Provincial District]

The Right Rev. Frederic Wallis

The Right Rev. Frederic Wallis, D.D., Lord Bishop of Wellington, was born in Hastings, England, and is a son of the late Rev. Joseph Wallis, M.A., Vicar of St. Andrew's, Stockwell, London. His Lordship was educated at St. Paul's School, and subsequently at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In the year 1876 he gained his B.A. degree, and in 1879, his M.A., the degree of D.D. being conferred upon him in 1894. During his college course, Dr. Wallis won the Carus prize on two occasions, namely, in 1874 and 1877. He carried off the Scholefield prize in 1878, and the Evans prize in the same year. He took a first class in the Classical Tripos in 1876, and in 1878 a first class in the Theological Tripos. In the same year he was made a Fellow of the Gonville and Caius College, which position he still holds. Dr. Wallis was ordained in 1878 as deacon, and as priest in the following year by the Bishop of Ely, at Ely Cathedral, near Cambridge. In 1878 he was appointed dean and lecturer of Divinity of the college, and in 1886 became examining chaplain to the Bishop of Salisbury. During the years 1878 to 1883 he was honorary curate of St. Luke's Chesterton, near Cambridge. In 1890, Dr. Wallis was appointed deputy to Dr. Hort, the Lady Margaret Professor of Cambridge. In this capacity he delivered a course of public lectures on the Epistles of St. Paul. In 1893 Dr. Wallis was senior Proctor of the University of Cambridge, and was appointed by the University a member of the governing body of St. Paul's School in 1892. The main work undertaken by Dr. Wallis as Dean of Gonville and Caius College was that of a kind of parish priest to the young men of the college. In this the reverend gentleman was very much at home, and describes it as being glorious work, in which he found intense delight. He was thus engaged from the year 1878 onwards. Dr. Wallis was approached in 1894 by the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham regarding the Bishopric of Wellington, and sailed in the s.s, “ Ormuz “ to Sydney at the end of the year. At Sydney he transhipped, completing his journey in the “Tarawera,” and arriving in Wellington in January, 1895. He was accompanied by Mrs. Wallis, nee Miss Margaret Williams, daughter of Colonel Robert Williams, M.P., of Bridehead, Dorset. The Lord Bishop of Salisbury was also one of the party, and this was the only occasion of an English bishop visiting New Zealand. Dr. Wallis was consecrated in St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington, on the 25th of January, 1895, by the Primate page 383 The Right Rev. Frederic Wallis of New Zealand, assisted by all the Bishops of the Colony, the Bishop of Salisbury and the Bishop of Melanesia. It will be interesting to Oddfellows to know that His Lordship the Bishop of Wellington is a member of the Manchester Unity, having joined the Cambridge Lodge in 1893.