Updated:  26 June 2012

John Heywood Waddington was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, and was ordained as a priest at Manchester Cathedral on March 2nd 1890.

One of his first posts as as curate of Saint Mary, Crumpsall, Manchester.  He moved for a short while to Rochdale, Lancashire, but in 1893 was appointed as curate of Saint Michael's, Hulme, Manchester.  His work in this huge slum district badly affected his health and in 1898 he was transferred to Buckland Brewer Parish Church in north Devon.

In 1904, at the request of the Bishop of Exeter, Bishop Robertson, he became the vicar of Saint Mark's Church at Ford, Devonport.  During his time there he was responsible for overseeing the erection of the Churches of Saint Clement and Saint Thomas as well as the purchase of a site at Swilly for the Church of Saint Anne. 

As well as continuing his membership of the Buckland Brewer School Board, he served on the Devonport Local Education Authority and later the Plymouth Local Education Authority.  He was elected to the Devonport Board of Guardians in 1908, for which he was chairman in 1913, and was a member of the Plymouth Voluntary Hospitals' Committee.  During the Great War he was a chaplain to the forces.

He was appointed a prebendary of Exeter Cathedral in 1922.  During 1923 he served as honorary clerical secretary of the Church Congress held at Plymouth and between 1924 and 1927 he was rural dean of the Three Towns.  Even the Union Savings Bank in Devonport benefitted from his guidance as vice-chairman.

In 1927 he became vicar of Totnes and rector of Littlehempston, where he celebrated his half-century in the ministry in March 1940.

Prebendary John Heywood Waddington died in 1950.