# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hawarden, Edward

​HAWARDEN, EDWARD (1662–1735), Roman catholic divine, eulogised by Bishop Milner as ‘one of the most profound theologians and able controversialists of his age,’ the son of Thomas Hawarden of Croxteth, Lancashire, was born on 9 April 1662, and was educated at the English College at Douay. He was ordained priest on 7 June 1686. He had been previously engaged as classical tutor in his college, and now was appointed professor of philosophy. He took his degree of B.D. at the university of Douay, and was immediately afterwards placed at the head of a colony of priests sent in September and October 1688 from Douay to Oxford. When James II had determined to make Magdalen College a seat of catholic education, Hawarden was intended for the tutorship of divinity at Magdalen. The expected revolution forced him to leave Oxford on 16 Nov. and return to Douay, where he was installed as professor of divinity, and held the office for seventeen years. He took the degree of D.D. soon after his return, and was appointed vice-president of the college. In 1702 he was an unsuccessful candidate for one of the royal chairs of divinity in Douay University. A little later he was groundlessly accused of Jansenism. He left Douay in September 1707, and for a few years conducted a mission at Gilligate, Durham. On the death of his friend Bishop Smith in 1711 he exchanged that mission for one at Aldcliffe Hall, near Lancaster, which he probably left in 1715, on the seizure of the hall by the commissioners for forfeited estates. Before 1719 he was settled in London, had been appointed ‘catholic controversy writer,’ and had published an important work. On the publication of the second edition of Dr. Samuel Clarke's ‘Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,’ which came out in 1719, a conference was arranged by the desire of Queen Caroline between Hawarden and Clarke for the express purpose of discussing the Trinitarian ​doctrine. The meeting took place in the presence of the queen, and Hawarden was thought to have the best of the dispute. He returned to the subject some years later in his ‘Answer to Dr. Clarke and Mr. Whiston.’ He died on 23 April 1735 in London. A mezzotint portrait of Hawarden by Turner was published about 1814.
He wrote: 1. ‘The True Church of Christ, shewed by concurrent Testimonies of Scripture and Primitive Tradition, in answer to … [Leslie's] The Case Stated,’ &c., 1714–1715, 2 vols. 8vo; 2nd edit. 1738. 2. ‘Discourses of Religion, between a Minister of the Church of England and a Country Gentleman,’ 1716, 12mo. 3. ‘The Rule of Faith truly stated in a new and easy Method,’ &c., 1721. 4. ‘Postscript, or a Review of the Grounds already laid,’ 1720. 5. ‘Some Remarks on the Decree of King Augustus II, &c. By H. E.,’ 1726. 6. ‘Charity and Truth; or, Catholicks not uncharitable in saying that none are saved out of the Catholick Communion, because the Rule is not Universal,’ Brussels, 1728, 8vo; a reply to Chillingworth's ‘Religion of Protestants.’ 7. ‘Catholick Grounds, or a Summary and Rational Account of the Unchangeable Orthodoxy of the Catholick Church,’ 1729, 8vo. 8. ‘An Answer to Dr. Clarke and Mr. Whiston concerning the Divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ 1729. On the publication of this work Hawarden received the thanks of the university of Oxford for his defence of the Trinity. 9. ‘Wit against Reason, or the Protestant Champion, the great, the incomparable Chillingworth not invulnerable,’ &c., Brussels, 1735, 8vo. A collected edition of his works was published at Dublin in 1808. Several of his unpublished manuscripts are mentioned by Mr. Gillow.
[Gillow's Bibliog. Dict. of English Catholics, iii. 167–82; Dodd's Church Hist. 1742, iii. 487; Butler's Memoirs of the Catholics, 1822, iii. 429; C. Butler's Confessions of Faith, 1816, p. 65; Douay Diaries (Knox), 1878; Tyldesley Diary (Gillow and Hewitson), 1873; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 194.]
C. W. S.