PUSEY, EDWARD BOUVERIE English divine, was born at Pusey near Oxford on Aug. 22, 1800, the son of Philip Bouverie, who took the name of Pusey on succeeding to the manor of that name. Edward Pusey was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, and became a fellow of Oriel in 1824. He thus became a member of a society which included J. H. Newman and John Keble. Between 1825 and 1827 he studied Oriental languages and German theology at Gottingen. In 1828 the duke of Wellington appointed him to the regius professorship of Hebrew with the canonry of Christ Church.
By the end of 1833 he showed a disposition to make common cause with those who had already begun to issue the Tracts for the Times. "He was not, however, fully associated in the move ment till 1835 and 1836, when he published his tract on baptism and started the Library of the Fathers" (Newman's Apologia, p. 136). He became a close student of the fathers and of that school of Anglican divines who had continued, or revived, in the I 7th century the main traditions of pre-Reformation teaching.
A sermon which he preached before the university in 1843, The Holy Eucharist, a Comfort to the Penitent, so startled the authorities that he was suspended for two years from preaching. The effect of his suspension was the sale of 18,000 copies of the condemned sermon and Pusey at once became an influence in the Anglican Church.
The movement, in the actual origination of which he had had no share, came to bear his name : it was popularly known as Puseyism (sometimes as Newmania) and its adherents as Puseyites. His activity, both public and private, as leader of the movement was enormous. He was not only on the stage but also behind the scenes of every important controversy, whether theological or academical. In the Gorham controversy of 1850, in the question of Oxford reform in 1854, in the prosecution of some of the writers of Essays and Reviews, especially of Benjamin Jowett, in 1863, in the question as to the reform of the marriage laws from 1849 to the end of his life, in the Farrar controversy as to the meaning of everlasting punishment in 1877, he was always busy with articles, letters, treatises and sermons. Some of his sermons before the university marked distinct stages in the history of the High Church party which he led.
The revival of confession in the Church of England practically dates from his two sermons on The Entire Absolution of the Penitent, in 1846. The sermon on The Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, in 1853, first formulated the doctrine round which almost all the subsequent theology of his followers revolved, and which revolutionized the practices of Anglican worship. Of his larger works the most important are : his two books on the Eucharist—The Doctrine of the Real Presence (1855) and The Real Presence . . . the Doctrine of the English Church (1857) ; Daniel the Prophet in which he endeavours to maintain the tradi tional date of that book ; The Minor Prophets, with Commentary, his chief contribution to the study of which he was the professor; and the Eirenicon, in which he endeavoured to find a basis of union between the Church of England and the Church of Rome.
In private life Pusey's habits were simple almost to austerity. He had few personal friends, and rarely mingled in general society ; though bitter to opponents, he was gentle to those who knew him, and his munificent charities gave him a warm place in the hearts of many to whom he was personally unknown. The deaths of his wife (1839) and of his only son (1880) saddened his life. He died on Sept. 16, 1882, and was buried at Oxford in the cathedral of which he had been for fifty-four years a canon. In his memory his friends purchased his library, and endowed for it a house in Oxford, known as Pusey House.
See B. W. Savile, Dr. Pusey, an Historic Sketch, with Some Account of the Oxford Movement (1883) ; the Life by Canon Liddon, com pleted by J. C. Johnston and R. J. Wilson (5 vols., 1893-90 Newman's Apologia, and other literature of the Oxford Movement.
Pusey's elder brother, PHILIP PUSEY (1799-1855), was a member of parliament and a friend and follower of Sir Robert Peel. He was one of the founders of the Royal Agricultural Society, and was chairman of the implement department of the great exhibition of 1851. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, a writer on varied topics for the reviews and the author of the hymn "Lord of our Life and God of our Salvation."