Westcott, BROOKE FOSS, a great New Testament scholar, was born near Birmingham in 1825, and, like Lightfoot, Hatch, and Benson, had his schooling under Prince Lee at King Edward's School, Birmingham, whence he passed to Trinity College, Cambridge. He carried off the Battié university scholarship, the medal for the Greek ode twice, the Bachelor's prize for the Latin essay twice, the Norrisian prize (1850), and in 1848 was bracketed first classic. Elected fellow of his college in 1849, he took orders in 1851, and was an assistant-master at Harrow from 1852 till 1869, when he became a canon of Peterborough. He was appointed regius professor of Divinity at Cambridge in 1870, chaplain-in-ordinary to the Queen in 1879, canon of Westminster in 1883, and in 1890 succeeded his dear friend Lightfoot in the bishopric of Durham. The D.D. of his own university (1870) was followed by the Oxford D.C.L. in 1881, and the Edinburgh D.D. at her tercentenary in 1883. He was one of the company for the revision of the Authorised Version of the New Testament, and his views are known to have had the greatest influence in the deliberations. His edition of The New Testament in Greek was published in 1881, the result, conjointly with Dr Hort, of the labours of twenty-eight years. The first volume contained the text, the second the introduction. Manuals of the greatest value, no less for their learning than their clearness of style, are General Survey of the History of the New Testament Canon (1855) and An Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (1860). No less admirable summaries of knowledge are The Bible in the Church (1864) and A General View of the History of the English Bible (1868). His commentaries are upon the Gospel of St John (Speaker's Commentary, 1882), the Epistles of St John (1883), and the Epistle to the Hebrews (1889).
Besides these Dr Westcott has published several volumes of strong and eloquent sermons: Characteristics of the Gospel Miracles (1859), The Gospel of the Resurrection (1866), The Christian Life Manifold and One (1869), Steps in the Christian Life (1880), The Revelation of the Risen Lord (1881), The Historic Faith, on Apostles' Creed (1883), The Revelation of the Father (1884), Christus Consummator (1887), Social Aspects of Christianity (1887), The Victory of the Cross (1888). Other books are On Some Points in the Religious Office of the Universities (1873), The Paragraph Psalter (1879), Some Thoughts from the Ordinal (1884), and Essays in the History of Religious Thought in the West (1891).