Born: Sep­tem­ber 25, 1816, Man­ches­ter, Lan­ca­shire, Eng­land.

Westall em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca around 1830, and lived with his fa­ther in Low­ell, Mas­sa­chu­setts. Around 1837, he moved to Prov­i­dence, Rhode Is­land, and in 1838, to Fall Riv­er, Mas­sa­chu­setts. He worked in Fall Riv­er for 36 years as a de­sign­er at the Amer­i­can Print Works, stu­dy­ing the­ol­o­gy in his spare time. Though he had planned to be­come an Epis­co­pal min­is­ter, he was in­flu­enced by the works of Em­man­u­el Swe­den­borg, and he joined the Church of New Je­ru­sa­lem in­stead. He was a lay read­er and serv­ice lead­er for ma­ny years, but de­clined a num­ber of re­quests to be­come a full time min­is­ter.

Dur­ing this per­i­od, West­all vis­it­ed France, Eng­land, Switz­er­land, Ita­ly, Egypt, the Ho­ly Land, Tur­key, and Greece. These tra­vels and ex­per­i­ences pro­vid­ed back­ground for es­says, po­ems, and other lit­er­ary ef­forts. For a while, he served as a news­pa­per ed­it­or in Fall River.

In 1877, West­all be­came a full time Swe­den­borg­i­an pas­tor, and was very ac­tive in state and re­gion­al af­fairs. He served as a del­e­gate to po­lit­ic­al con­ven­tions, as a mem­ber of the school com­mit­tee, a lib­ra­ry trust­ee, and in other po­si­tions. He al­so en­joyed play­ing the vi­o­lin and com­pos­ing mu­sic. In 1880, Brown Un­i­ver­si­ty gave him an hon­o­rary de­gree. The West­all School in Fall River, Mas­sa­chu­setts, is named af­ter him.

Hymns

1. O How Shall I Keep My Christ­mas?