HOOK, WALTER FARQUHAR (179S-1875). An English dean and ecclesiastical historian. He was the nephew of the humorist Theodore Hook, and the son of Dr. James Hook, Dean of Wor cester. He was born in London. graduated M.A. at Christ Church. Oxford, in 1824, and received the degree of D.D. in 1837. He took holy orders in 1821, and after holding curacies in the isle of Wight and in Birmingham. was Vicar of Holy Trinity, Coventry. from 1828 to 1837. when he beeame incumbent of Leeds. Here by his tact and resourcefulness he overcame strenuous opposition on time part of Dissenters and aniong the working classes, who objected to compulsory Church rates. won great popularity; and in 1859. when he be came Dean of Chichester, left Leeds richer by 21 new churches, 29 vicarages, and 27 schools. From 1S27 he was chaplain-in-ordinary to George IV., William IV., and Victoria, on the accession of the latter preaching in the Chapel Royal his famous sermon, "Hear the Church," of which 28 editions, numbering over 100,000 copies. were
sold in a short time. Its great vogue was due to the original enunciation of the fact that the Anglican Church of the sixteenth century was a reformed church and a return to O. early English Church founded by the Apostles. At Chichester he wrote his most important work, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (12 vole., 1860-76). Besides sermons and devotional works he published: it Church Dictionary (1842; 14th ed. 1887) ; and Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Biog raphy (8 vols., 1845-52). Ilk memory is per petuated in Leeds by a handsome Gothic me morial church, completed in 1880. Consult Stephens, Life and Letters of Dean Hook (Lon don, 1878).