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Owen Emeric Vidal (1819-1854) was the first Anglican Bishop of Sierra Leone and West Africa from 1852 until his death three years later.

Life

He was the son of Emeric Essex Vidal and his wife Anna Jane Capper, daughter of the Rev. James Capper, born at Easthampstead. He was educated at St Paul's School, Southsea. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1838, where he graduated B.A. in 1842, and M.A. in 1845; he was awarded a D.D. in 1852.

Ordained deacon in March 1843, Vidal was ordained priest in December of the same year. He was Vicar of Holy Trinity, Upper Dicker until his elevation to the episcopate. The ceremony took place on Whit Sunday, May 1852, in Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop of Canterbury was assisted by the Bishops of London, Chichester, Oxford, and Cape Town. Vidal was the first bishop of Sierra Leone, a see that comprised all British possessions on the west coast of Africa between the latitudes of 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south, and more especially the colonies of Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and the Gold Coast. He brought his sick wife back to England in 1854, then returned to Lagos later that same year where he ordained Thomas Babington Macaulay (Nigeria) and Thomas King, who were the first Africans admitted to the ministry of the Anglican Church upon their own soil. Bishop Vidal died while on a sea voyage back to Sierra Leone after his visit to the churches in Yorubaland, on or about the 23rd December 1854, and was buried at Freetown on 27 December 1854.

Family

Vidal married in 1852 Anne Adelaide Hoare, the fourth daughter of the Rev. Henry Hoare, vicar of Framfield. They had one daughter, Annie Selina Hoare Vidal.

Publications

A Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language (with Samuel Adjai Crowther) (1852)

References

1. Anglican History, Owen Emeric Vidal
3. ^ "Vidal, Owen Emeric (VDL838OE)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
4. ^ Dod, Charles Roger (1854). The Peerage, baronetage, and knightage of Great Britain and Ireland. London : Whittaker and Co. p. 478.
5. Sierra Leone Studies. Institute of African Studies, Fourah Bay College. 1966. p. 211.
6. From the LONDON GAZETTE, Friday, May 21. Downing-Street, May 19 The Times Saturday, May 22, 1852; pg. 5; Issue 21122; col B
8. St Peters Church Faji Lagos website, The History of St. Peter's Church Since 1853
9. Biblical Studies website, Early Religious Influences in Sierra Leone, article by F.W. Butt-Thompson, published in Baptist Quarterly 16.7 (July 1956), page 319
11. ‘THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ITS ENVIRONMENT, ITS MEN AND ITS WORK' BY EUGENE STOCK, EDITORIAL SECRETARY. THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, Salisbury Square, E.C. 1899. Accessed May 2010
12. The Times, Friday, Feb 09, 1855; pg. 10; Issue 21973; col B Death Of The Bishop Of Sierra Leone
14. Baker, Thomas (1869). History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge. University Press. p. 976.
15. ABE Books website, A Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language

External links

• Bibliographic directory from Project Canterbury

• 1819 births
• Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
• 19th-century Anglican bishops in Sierra Leone
• English Anglican missionaries
• Anglican missionaries in Sierra Leone
• Anglican bishops of Sierra Leone
• 1854 deaths