John Henry Newman, CO (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890), also referred to as Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman, is an important figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century.
He is known nationally by the mid-1830s.
Originally an evangelical Oxford academic and priest in the Church of England, Newman is a leader in the Oxford Movement.
This influential grouping of Anglicans wishes to return the Church of England to many Catholic beliefs and forms of worship traditional in the medieval times to restore ritual expression.
In 1845, Newman leaves the Church of England and is received into the Roman Catholic Church where he is eventually granted the rank of cardinal by Pope Leo XIII.
He is instrumental in the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland, which evolves into University College, Dublin, today, the largest university in Ireland.
Newman's beatification is officially proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 September 2010 during his visit to the United Kingdom.
His canonization is dependent on the documentation of additional miracles.
Newman is also a literary figure of note: his major writings including his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865–66), the Grammar of Assent (1870), and the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865), which is set to music in 1900 by Edward Elgar as an oratorio.
He writes the popular hymns "Lead, Kindly Light" and "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" (taken from Gerontius).
