HENRY NUTCOMBE OXENHAM (1829-1888), English ecclesiologist, son of a master at Harrow, was born there on the 1 5th of November 182 9. From Harrow he went to Balliol College, Oxford. He took Anglican orders in 1854, but became a Roman Catholic in 1857. At first his thoughts turned towards the priesthood, and he spent some time at the London Oratory and at St Edmund's College, Ware; but being unable to surrender his belief in the validity of Anglican orders, he proceeded no further than minor orders in the Roman Church. In 1863 he made a prolonged visit to Germany, where he studied the language and literature, and formed a close friendship with Ddllinger, whose First Age of the Christian Church he translated in 1866. Oxenham was a regular contributor to the Saturday Review. A selection of his essays was published in Short Studies in Ecclesiastical History and Biography (1884), and Short Studies, Ethical and Religious (1885). He also translated in 1876 the 2nd vol. of Bishop Hefele's History of the Councils of the Church, and published several pamphlets on the reunion of Christendom. His Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement (1865) and Catholic Eschatology and Universalism (1876) are standard works. Oxenham died at Kensington on the 23rd of March 1888.
See J. Gillow's Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. v. An interesting obituary notice on Oxenham was written by Vicesimus, i.e. Dean John Oakley of Manchester, for the Manchester Guardian, and published in pamphlet form (Manchester, 1888).