Isaac Hellmuth

Isaac Hellmuth (December 14, 1819 – 28 May 1901), second Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of Huron, was the founder of Huron University College and the University of Western Ontario, one of Canada's leading universities.

Isaac was born in Poland in 1819 and educated at the University of Breslau. His father was a rabbi and he trained to be a rabbi himself. However, intellectual discourse with theologians of other faiths made him question his faith and his father disowned him. He was forced to take his mothers maiden name.

He moved to England in 1842 and made his decision to convert Christianity and later confirmed to the Church of England. By 1844 he entered the ministry and was sent to the Anglican Diocese of Toronto. He studied for his ordination and, because of his prior education, soon had an appointment to Bishop's College in Lennoxville were he was ordained and became a professor of Hebrew and rabbinical literature. Hellmuth founded the Western University of London, Ontario in 1878, which was later renamed the University of Western Ontario. He was the first principle of Huron University College, the founding college of the University of Western Ontario.

References

* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=6778 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
* [http://communications.uwo.ca/alumni/story.html?issue=Summer2003&alum_stories::listing_id=10779 Bishop Isaac Hellmuth Biography at UWO]