Stacy Waddy was born at Carcoar, New South Wales, second son of Richard Waddy, a bank clerk from India, and his colonial-born wife Elizabeth Ann. After the family moved to Morpeth, Waddy attended East Maitland Grammar and The King's School, Parramatta. At Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., 1897; M.A., 1901), he read law and excelled at cricket. Capped for the university after scoring 107 not out against Surrey, Waddy played against Cambridge (1896 and 1897) but declined to assist the 1896 Australian touring team, preferring to travel home to visit his family.
Abandoning his intended career as a barrister for welfare and religious service at Oxford House in London's East End, he was made deacon on 18 December 1898 and ordained priest on 21 December 1899 by Bishop Mandell Creighton of London. Returning to New South Wales in 1900, Waddy married Etheldred Spittal at St James's Church, Morpeth, on 28 October 1901.
In October 1906 Waddy accepted an invitation to become headmaster of The King's School. At a time of expansion and change, he founded a junior school (1908), set up a house system and began 'land classes' for boys without academic pretensions. A part-time services chaplain from 1908, Waddy was twice refused leave by the school council to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I. In May 1916 he resigned and became an army chaplain.
Following a spell in Australia in 1918, Waddy became canon of St George's Cathedral, Jerusalem, archdeacon of Palestine with responsibility for education, and chaplain of the Order of St John of Jerusalem (1922); he published two local guides and gathered material for his popular Homes of the Psalms (London, 1928). He moved to London in 1924 when he was appointed secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
A prolific author of devotional works, Waddy also wrote detective stories with a biblical setting. Waddy contracted cerebral malaria on the Gold Coast, Africa, and died in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London, on 8 February 1937.
Adapted from the Australian Dictionary of Biography. A more complete entry can be found there for Percival Stacy Waddy.
