300 WHITWELL: THE LATE BISHOP OF WAKEFIELD. 
this I may be excused for attempting to supply, on the ground of 
my having had the pleasure of a certain measure of acquaintance- 
ship with him, dating from 1863. 
William Walsham How was born at Shrewsbury, on Dec. 13th, 
1823. In his poem ‘The First Spring Day’ he. wrote— 
My childhood’s home was in a town, but there 
A garden-terrace looked o’er meadow-lands, 
Out to a hill, whose hollow banks were rich 
With knots of varied foliage. 
A foot-note explains that the passage refers to Haughmond Hill, as 
seen from the Stone House, Shrewsbury. He goes on to say— 
And thither I would run alone each day 
And oft-times in a day, to taste anew 
The deep mysterious draught of my delight. 
The deep passionate love of Nature which found large and beautiful 
expression in after years was evidently already manifesting itself. 
Five years of my own boyhood were lived at Shrewsbury—from 84 
to 134—and Haughmond Hill, and the terraced houses near the 
English bridge, and ‘ Darwin’s,’ and the scenery of the river above 
the town, are bound up with the recollections of that time. Nor 
was I without some dim, longing, unshapen sense of the beauty and 
wonder of the world in: those early days. It was at Shrewsbury, In 
the spring following my thirteenth birthday—the spring of 1853— 
that my own love of our wild flowers was first awakened by chapters 
on botany in the then newly-issuing Cassell’s ‘ Popular Educator.’ 
The boy was educated at Shrewsbury School, under its celebrated 
master, Dr. Kennedy. In due time (1841) he passed to Wadham 
College, Oxford, where he took his degree of B.A. in 1845, with 
a third class in classics—going on to M.A. in 1847. Two at least 
of his published poems belong to the undergraduate years. In 1845 
he went to Durham University for a time, for special theological 
study, and in the following year he became curate of Kidderminster, 
under the Rev. T. L. Claughton, afterwards Bishop, first of Rochester 
and then of St. Albans. After two years he returned to Shrewsbury; 
as curate of Holy Cross. 
In 1851, Mr. How succeeded, by purchase, to the rectory of 
Whittington, near Oswestry. His life there, of twenty-eight be 4 
was one of steady activity. Soon becoming diocesan Inspector © ~ 
Schools, in 1853 he was also appointed Rural Dean of ecu 2 f 
In 1859 he was made Prebendary and Chancellor of St. Asaph's.” is 
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