Frederick Lee (priest)

Lee was trained in Cuddesdon Theological College and ordained to priesthood in 1856 by the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce.^[2] Lee became, together with Ambrose de Lisle and others, a co-founder of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom (APUC) in 1857.^[3] In Aberdeen, he had difficulties with the bishop concerning his ritualistic practices; he later became vicar of All Saints' Lambeth (York Street/Leake Street), London.

In 1874, Lee, John Thomas Seccombe, and Thomas Wimberley Mossman founded a clandestine Anglo-Papalist society, the Order of Corporate Reunion, to continue the work of the APUC and to restore an apostolic succession recognised by the Roman Catholic Church through re-ordinations, as a means for reunion.^[1] Lee is believed to have been secretly consecrated as a bishop by some Roman Catholic prelates whose names were kept secret until 2000.^[4] Lee styled himself Bishop of Dorchester for a while and performed some ordinations, but later became disillusioned and believed that he made a mistake.^[5]

In the late 1880s, Lee was a member of the Order of the White Rose, the club that sparked the Neo-Jacobite Revival in the United Kingdom.^{[citation needed]} On 11 December 1901, Lee was received into the Roman Catholic Church, shortly before his death.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to his published sermons, books, and literary work, Lee edited numerous periodicals during his career, including The Union Newspaper (1856-1862), The Scottish Miscellany (1860-1861), The Union Review (1863-1869), The Church News (1867-1869), The Church Herald (1870), The Lambeth Review (1872), The Reunion Magazine (1877-1879, four numbers issued irregularly).