John Henry Newman - Oxford Movement

Oxford Movement

In 1828 Newman supported and secured the election of Edward Hawkins as Provost of Oriel over John Keble. This choice, he later commented, produced the Oxford Movement with all its consequences. In the same year he was appointed vicar of St Mary's, to which the living of Littlemore south of the city of Oxford was attached, and Pusey was made Regius Professor of Hebrew.

At this date, though Newman was still nominally associated with the Evangelicals, his views were gradually assuming a higher ecclesiastical tone. George Herring considers that the death of his sister Mary in January had a major impact on Newman. In the summer he worked to read the Church Fathers thoroughly.

While local secretary of the Church Missionary Society, Newman circulated an anonymous letter suggesting a method by which churchmen might practically oust Nonconformists from all control of the society. This resulted in his being dismissed from the post, 8 March 1830; and three months later he withdrew from the Bible Society, completing his move away from the Low Church group. In 1831–1832 he was select preacher before the university. In 1832, his difference with Hawkins as to the "substantially religious nature" of a college tutorship became acute and he resigned from that post.