WHAT IS PUSEY HOUSE?
Living and working in the catholic tradition
of the
Church of England.
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​Pusey House was opened in 1884 as a memorial to Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, who was for forty years a figurehead of the Oxford Movement and its de facto leader after Newman's conversion in 1845. According to its founding documents, the House exists to promote theological study and holiness of life, and to provide spiritual counsel and comfort to members of the University.
Today, the community of Pusey House embraces not only members of the University, but all who avail themselves of the work and ministry of the House within the Church of England and beyond. In working to renew the Church of England’s Catholic life and witness, Pusey and his colleagues also sought to understand and respond to the most profound needs of society in their day. One of the basic principles of the Oxford Movement was that the life of the mind and the life of prayer belong together, and that holiness of life overflows in ministries of love and service. In different ways and in a different context, Pusey House today seeks to embody these founding principles.
WHO'S WHO?
Fr George Westhaver
THE PRINCIPAL
Fr George joined Pusey House in August 2013. He grew up near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the East coast of Canada. He studied philosophy and anthropology at McGill University, Montreal, and International Development Studies at St Mary's University in Halifax. He then read for a Master of Divinity degree at Wycliffe College, one of the member colleges of the Toronto School of Theology.
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After ordination in 1997 George served in Cherry Hinton with Teversham and in the Ramseys and Upwood (Diocese of Ely), then in Oxford as Assistant Minister at St Michael at the North Gate and Lincoln College Chaplain.
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​George completed a PhD at the University of Durham under the supervision of Professor Andrew Louth, on E. B. Pusey’s unpublished lectures, ‘Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament’. His research interests include E. B. Pusey and the Oxford Movement, the allegorical interpretation of the Bible, and the artistic expression of Christian doctrine. George is married to Karen and they have two daughters, Clara and Charlotte.
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Fr Mark Stafford
THE CHAPLAIN
Fr Mark joined Pusey House in September 2014. After graduating from Liverpool University in Modern Languages, and from National Circus Schools in Paris and Bristol, he spent the best part of a decade as a Circus Performer, before running away from the Circus to join the Church. Mark trained for Ordination at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, and has served as Assistant Curate in the Parish of St. Barnabas and St. Paul, Jericho, and as Junior Chaplain at Merton College, since being ordained. Before coming to Oxford, Mark was the founder and Director of the Youth Charity 'redthread', and lists among his interests football, duelling weapons of the 18th Century, and Group Analytic Psychotherapy.
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Email: pusey.chaplain@stx.ox.ac.uk
Dr Jonathan Price
Matraszek Fellow
Jonathan joined Pusey House in October 2020. For the previous fifteen years he had been completing an annual scholarly circuit between Leiden, Warsaw, and Oxford, teaching and researching. In Oxford, he was junior research fellow at Blackfriars Hall and DPhil candidate, reading law, at Oriel College. In Leiden, he was PhD Fellow and lecturer in jurisprudence at the Leiden University Law School. And in Warsaw he was a sometime assistant professor in the faculty of philosophy. Now he is wholly involved in the work of Pusey House, and that of the broader university, as a Pusey Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford.
Professor Nigel Biggar
DISTINGUISHED
SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE
Professor Biggar's academic profile can be found at: https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-nigel-biggar
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Daniel supervises our Common Good project at Pusey House, which this year will work in chaplaincy at schools in Blackbird Leys.
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Email: pusey.sacristan@stx.ox.ac.uk
Daniel
Martin-Thomas
THE SACRISTAN
EDWARD GAUT
THE MASTER OF THE MUSIC
Alongside his work at the House, Edward is the Junior Organ Scholar at Keble College, Oxford, accompanying the college choir for their weekly services. Edward is in his second year of an undergraduate degree in Music. Edward is also a keen singer, and is a part of the early music ensemble Antiquum Documentum, for whom he also plays the organ. He studies conducting with Will Dawes and organ with Stephen Farr.
Before coming up to Oxford, he spent a year at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Anne Page and David Titterington. Recent recital venues have included All Saint’s, Orpington; St Michael and All Angels’, Great Torrington; Keble College Chapel and Exeter College Chapel. Edward grew up in Sevenoaks, beginning organ studies with Peter Young. He was a music scholar at The King’s School, Canterbury, where he studied the organ with Adrian Bawtree.
TIMOTHY POWELL
CHAPEL INTERN
Tim grew up in rural Lincolnshire and first came to Oxford in 2017 to read for a BA in Modern and Medieval Languages at St Edmund Hall, serving for two years as a Chapel Clerk and spending a Year Abroad volunteering in France and studying in Germany. He then read for an MSt in Modern Languages at St John's College, Oxford, where he was also a Chapel Warden, before joining the House team in 2023, in which he serves as a vocational Chapel Intern and administrator of the House website.
Tim has research interests in the field of medieval German literature and reception studies. Within theology, he is developing interests in typology, sanctification, and the Eucharist. His recreations include reading in several languages, fitness, volunteering, and cooking and baking in the House kitchen.
Email: pusey.office@stx.ox.ac.uk
DAVID STEN
CHAPEL INTERN
David has been a member of the House team as a vocational Chapel Intern since 2023.
Email: pusey.office@stx.ox.ac.uk
RUTH DANSTÅL
House INTERN
Ruth joined the House team as a non-vocational House Intern in 2024. Her responsibilities include organising the hospitality of the House, purchasing House supplies and managing the House guest room.
Email: pusey.office@stx.ox.ac.uk
Ian Palmer
ADMINISTRATOR
Cathy Lewis
INTERIM LIBRARIAN
AND
PROJECT CATALOGUER
Cathy attained a BA Modern Languages degree in French and German from the University of East Anglia and a Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Management at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle. She achieved chartered membership of the Chartered Institute of Information and Library Management while working in Baker Tilly, Chartered Accountants in London.
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Coming to Oxford in 2002, she has worked in the Bodleian Law Library’s European Documentation Centre and then for over 20 years in Merton College Library, first responsible for the day to day running of the undergraduate library, then, to balance childcare, cataloguing and preserving post-1820 special collections, such as the large collections on T.S. Eliot and the Sitwell siblings. She has recently assisted St. Peter’s College with their modern cataloguing. She is looking forward to being the interim librarian at Pusey House Library.
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She is also a photographer; you can see some of her photographs at www.cathylewisphotos.com.
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Her hobbies are singing in choir and folk settings, tennis and dog walking.
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Email: pusey.librarian@stx.ox.ac.uk