Background
Wheeler was born on 5 May 1910 in Saddleworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, in the United Kingdom.
Wheeler was born on 5 May 1910 in Saddleworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, in the United Kingdom.
He was educated at the Manchester Grammar School and University College, Oxford. He was strongly influenced by the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the church in Worsley which he attended during his time at the Grammar School.
Later he was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1934 and began his ecclesiastical career with curacies at Street Bartholomew"s, Brighton, and Street Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield. He then enrolled at Beda College in Rome to study for the Catholic priesthood. Ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1940, he was firstly an assistant curate at Street Edmund"s Parish in Lower Edmonton, then chaplain (and later Administrator) at the Westminster Cathedral.
He often made a point of noting to his clergy that he understand their difficulties from his having heard confessions every day of the 11 years he served in that office.
He was later named by the Holy See to the episcopate as the coadjutor bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough in 1964, immediately after which he participated in the last two sessions of the Second Vatican Council. Wheeler was named Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds in 1966.
One example is that, immediately after his return from Rome, he founded a new ecumenical centre at Wood Hall in Wetherby, Yorkshire. Later, despite his feelings about the historic structure of the diocese, he followed part of its instruction by supervising the division of his diocese in 1980, in keeping with the Conciliar mandate to have dioceses be of such a size as to be truly manageable under one bishop.
Yet Wheeler remained a staunch conservative in matters of liturgical practice.
He was the last bishop in England to use the cappa magna, and had a strong attachment to the Tridentine Massachusetts
Wheeler submitted his resignation as bishop of the diocese at the mandatory age of 75 in 1985. He then entered an active retirement. Wheeler died on 21 February 1998, aged 87, after a brief illness.
A noted author, his memoir, In Truth and Love, was published posthumously in 1990.
In March 2013, catholic primary and secondary schools in north west Leeds and Bradford, joined together to gain Academy status from the government, as a Catholic Multi Academy Trust. The Trust, the second in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Leeds, took the name The Bishop Wheeler Catholic Academy Trust.
At present, 6 schools form the parts of the trust, however there are 10 other catholic schools could join in the future.
He was an enthusiastic supporter of the spirit of the Council.