Thomas Wimberley Mossman

Thomas Wimberley Mossman (1826 - July 6, 1885) was a Church of England priest, novelist, translator, episcopus vagans and Ritualist leader associated with the Order of Corporate Reunion (OCR). He was born in Skipton, North Yorkshire. Ordained priest on May 26, 1850, following studies at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, he became curate of Donington on Bain (of which his uncle was non-resident rector) as deacon in 1849. He was curate of Panton, Lincolnshire in 1852, vicar of Ranby, Lincolnshire[1] in 1854, and rector of the united benefices of East Torrington and West Torrington in Lincolnshire in 1859. Mossman was the primary English translator of the extensive biblical commentaries of the Flemish Roman Catholic exegete and priest, Cornelius a Lapide (1567-1637).

At West Torrington, Mossman founded the Brotherhood of the Holy Redeemer in 1866 for poor students wishing to study for ordination: "This Religious Order has been instituted with the object of enabling a few Catholic-minded men to form themselves into a Community, wherein they may study and prepare for Holy Orders under the guidance of a Parish Priest." This order collapsed not long after its founding on account of a failure to achieve episcopal approbation.

Mossman assumed the title Bishop of Selby in the Order of Corporate Reunion, an organization founded to re-ordain Church of England clergy with unquestionably valid holy orders in order to promote recognition by and reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. For these activities, he was expelled from the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) in 1879. He was a close associate of OCR rector Frederick George Lee and John Thomas Seccombe.

In 1852 Mossman married Mary Jane Ellis, daughter of Captain Dixie Ellis; together, they had seven children, including four sons and three daughters. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of the South in 1881. Mossman became a Roman Catholic during his final illness in 1885, and was received into that communion by his friend Cardinal Henry Edward Manning.