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The Two Lives of Thomas Metcalfe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
Abstract
In his 1990 article ‘Holzhauser and England: Three Episodes' T. A. Birrell tells the story of John Dryden's intervention with the Secretary of State, Sir William Trumbull, on behalf of a Catholic publisher who had got into trouble with the authorities for publishing and disseminating ‘several popish and seditious books’. The publisher's name was Thomas Metcalfe, his main crime was the publication of Constitutiones clericorum saecularium in commune viventium, and Dryden asks Trumbull to be lenient since Metcalfe is ‘a young man and this is his first offence’. Moreover Dryden predicts, that ‘upon asking pardon’ Metcalfe will promise to offend no more.
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1 In Grenzgänge. Literatur und Kultur im Kontext. Beiträge für Hans Pörnbacher zum 60. Geburtstag und zum Abschied von der Universität Nijmegen, edited by Guillaume, Van Gemert & Hans, Ester, Amsterdam/Atianta 1990, pp. 453–63.Google Scholar
2 Wing C4879A, 1697; Thomas, H. Clancy, English Catholic Books 1641–1700, Aldershot 1996,Google Scholar mistakenly names Ralph Metcalfe as the publisher and EEBO (Early English Books Online) wrongly assigns the work to Robert Pugh (see also below).
3 Plomer, H. R., Dictionaries of the printers and booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland 1557–1775, The Bibliographical Society, 1970;Google Scholar Blom, J. M., The Post-Tridentine English Primer, Catholic Record Society, Monograph 3, 1982;Google Scholar Burton, E. H. and Nolan, E. (eds), Douay College Diaries. The Seventh Diary 1715–1778, London 1929,Google Scholar CRS vol. 28; Gillow, J., A literary and biographical history or bibliographical dictionary of the English Catholics, 5 vols, London and New York 1885–1902.Google Scholar
4 We hope to publish a fuller study at some future date.
5 The facts related to the Metcalfe family mainly derive from FamilySearch.org, the genealogical website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; other sources are given in individual notes below.
6 Hugh, Aveling, Northern Catholics. The Catholic Recusants of the North Riding of Yorkshire 1558–1790, London 1966, pp. 353–4Google Scholar mentions John Metcalfe as one of the persons whose arrival in Richmond contributed to the upgrading of the Catholic population of the place. In the Worcestershire Recusant, no. 5, May 1965, p. 45 there is a reference to the Haggerstone MSS in the Northumberland Record Office suggesting that Thomas's father, ‘Mr. Metcalfe of Richmond’, was involved in the financing of the Society of Jesus—the latter fact is interesting in view of Thomas's own activities after 1715.
7 Note that St. Giles in the Fields incorporates Bloomsbury till at least 1730.
8 From the ‘Obligations and Donations book 1730–1738’ at the Farm Street Archives, London, (ref. 7/2) it is clear that Christopher died some time between 12 February and 6 May 1736.
9 Geoffrey, Holt, St. Omers and Bruges Colleges, London 1979, CRS vol. 69, p. 177.Google Scholar
10 See Eighteenth Century Medics, Newcastle upon Tyne 1988, by P. J. and R. V. Wallis where George is described as a surgeon, while Christopher is listed as an apothecary (the authors suggest that the distinction between these professions was not very strict at the time). It is interesting to note that the Dryden letter referred to above states that the persons who asked Dryden to intervene on behalf of their ‘brother’ were ‘two of my [Dryden's] best friends, who have contributed very much to my recovery’. It seems plausible that the two people who helped Dryden recover his health were the medical doctors George and Christopher Metcalfe.
11 George, PCC PROB 11/514, dated 10 March 1710, proved 8 March 1711; Christopher, PCC PROB 11/678, dated 6 March 1734, proved 5 July 1736; Thomas, PCC PROB 11/789. See also below.
12 McKenzie, D. F., Stationers’ Company Apprentices 1641–1700, Oxford 1974, p. 168.Google Scholar
13 Hugh, Bowler ed., London Sessions Records, London 1934,Google Scholar CRS vol. 34.
14 Calendar of State Papers Domestic for 1693, ed. Hardy, W. J., London 1903, p. 164.Google Scholar
15 See Appendix 1 for a list of his works that were published by Metcalfe.
16 In his examination by the Lords, Justices (Calendar of State Papers Domestic for 1697, ed. Hardy, W. J., London 1927,Google Scholar 19 Aug. 1697) Metcalfe states that ‘he had the copy from one Gerald’; as a matter of course it seems rather unlikely that Metcalfe was quite honest in claiming that he did not know the surname of the person who gave him the copy. Apart from Birrell's article see also the same Calendar of State Papers Domestic for 1697, pp. 300, 301, 318.
17 Sylvester Jenks, prominent member of the Chapter and anti-Jansenist, was born c. 1656 (see Godfrey, Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, vol. 3, 1660–1715,Google Scholar Great Wakering 1976) and died in 1714. In the course of his life Jenks occasionally used the name ‘Metcalfe’ as an alias, which has sometimes created confusion for later historians.
18 One might venture the guess that the other Jenks publications in the period 1694–1715 listed in Clancy and in Blom, F., Blom, J., Korsten, F. and Scott, G., English Catholic Books 1701–1800, Aldershot 1996 Google Scholar (further referred to as BKS) might also have been produced by Metcalfe. In BKS 1525 (The whole duty of a Christian, 1711) there is a list of ‘Books printed for S.J.’ which contains the Jenks items incorporated in Appendix 2 and besides Three sermons upon the sacraments (a later ed. of Clancy 549) and The security of an humble penitent (Clancy 548.3).
19 We would like to thank the British Library Board for permission to reproduce the abstracts of the 8 letters from Add. MS 29612. We have preserved the spelling and the syntax, but we have normalized the capitalization.
20 BKS 1522; BKS does not list an abridgement although it is clear from later letters (see below) that it was actually published. BKS does not have a likely candidate for the abridgement of Thomas a Kempis.
21 Allibon, see below.
22 No copy extant.
23 Anstruther, Seminary Priests, vol. 3, p. 2.
24 Which was one of the motives why one of the fathers of Catholic bibliography, the late David Rogers, compiled his impressive collection of booksellers’ catalogues for the ARCR, Clancy and BKS periods.
25 Lancashire Record Office, St. Mary's RC Church, Fernyhalgh RCFE 3/7.
26 ‘John Gother and the English Way of Spirituality’, Recusant History, 11/6, October 1972, pp.306–19.
27 See Clancy, 431–73.
28 See Clancy and BKS.
29 Calendar of State Papers Domestic for 1705, ed. Knighton, C. S., London 1916.Google Scholar In the Calendar of Treasury Books, Jan. 1704–March 1705, ed. Shaw, W. A. (London 1938) and the Calendar of Treasury Books, April 1705-Sept. 1706, ed. Shaw, W. A. (London 1952)Google Scholar the development of this case is recorded. After a protest by the parties accused about the excessive nature of the fine, the case is re-examined because the informer, James Baker, is said to have connived with the priests in order to get the three hundred pounds reward. It is very tempting to speculate that this particular accusation was fabricated by the priests and Christopher Metcalfe so as to discredit the ‘priest-hunter’ concerned.
30 Leys, M. D. R., Catholics in England, London 1961, p. 181.Google Scholar
31 Anstruther, Seminary Priests, vol. 3, p. 50.
32 The Letter Book of Lewis Sabran, London 1971, CRS vol. 62, p. 113, note 7.
33 Plomer, Dictionary 1668–1725, p. 204.
34 John, Nichols, Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century, 9 vols, London 1812–6, vol. 1, pp. 50ff.Google Scholar
35 Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives, CO 264 and Z5/5/2/5.
36 Robert Plumerden, alias James Maurice (1664–1751), who for the greater part of his life lived in Paris; Thomas Plumerden, alias Pritchard (b. 1674) was sent on the English mission in May 1706, but left the priesthood c. 1718 (see Anstruther, Seminary Priests, vol. 3, pp. 171–2, and Harris, P. R., Douay College Documents, CRS, London 1972, p. 82).Google Scholar
37 London Metropolitan Archives, MR/R/R/23. It is not clear how long Metcalfe lived in Chelsea, but in 1730 he was back in St. Giles in the Fields.
38 Thomas Witham (d. 1727) was a cousin of George Witham, the Vicar Apostolic of the Northern District (see Anstruther, Seminary Priests, vol. 3, pp. 254–5, and the Oxford DNB under George Witham). The Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives hold several documents illustrating Thomas Witham's management of the finances of the Paris seminary, e.g. CO 221, 26 April 1709, and CO 222, 27 June 1709.
39 Wallis, Eighteenth Century Medics, p. 406.
40 Will of George Metcalfe, PCC PROB 11/514.
41 Wallis, p. 406.
42 See Hugh, Aveling, ‘The Catholic Recusancy of the Yorkshire Fairfaxes. Part II’, Recusant History, 4/2, 1957–8, pp. 61–101 Google Scholar (esp. p. 92). According to Aveling, Thomas Howard was ‘possibly Colonel Thomas Howard, a Catholic brother of the Earl of Carlisle and Fairfax's cousin’; Sir Charles Ingleby (fl. 1688) was a Roman Catholic judge. The London houses of several members of the Catholic gentry and nobility were to be found in such typically Catholic areas as St. Giles in the Fields, St. Martin in the Fields and Lincoln's Inn Field. Lists of Middlesex recusants from just after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 contain the names of, for instance, Charles Fairfax, Viscount Fairfax, Sir Charles Ingleby, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, Lady Derwentwater, the widow of the 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, Sir John Webb of Great Canford, Dorset, and John White (The National Archives, FEC1/1215 and FEC1/1216).
43 See note 75.
44 This paragraph is largely based on Ralph, Arnold, Northern Lights. The Story of Lord Derwentwater, London 1959, esp. pp. 161–4.Google Scholar See also Major, Francis John Angus Skeet, The Life of the Right Honourable James Radcliffe Third Earl of Derwentwater, London 1929, esp. pp. 122–3.Google Scholar
45 London Metropolitan Archives, MR/R/R/22/1.
46 See note 37.
47 The ‘Register’ in Wallis's Eighteenth Century Medics, gives two Richard Metcalfes but they are not from London and the dates do not fit; the only Roger Metcalfe in the ‘Register’ was an army-surgeon and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and he does not seem a likely candidate either.
48 Thomas Metcalfe, Medecalf Beccles 1930, p. 65.
49 Will of Christopher Metcalfe, PCC PROB 11/678: ‘Item I give and bequeath unto my godson the son of Mr. Roger Metcalfe surgeon the sum of one hundred pounds’.
50 Burton and Nolan, The Douay College Diaries. The Seventh Diary, p. 45.
51 Peter Giffard (d. 1746), of Blackladies, who became of Chillington. See also note 109.
52 George Brown, S.J. (1670–1735), was the Earl of Derwentwater's domestic chaplain and confessor (see Arnold, pp. 143–4 and pp. 155–7 and Geoffrey, Holt, The English Jesuits 1650–1829. A biographical dictionary, CRS 1984, p. 44).Google Scholar
53 Nicholas Blundell (1669–1737). Frank Tyrer, The Great Diurnal of Nicholas Blundell. Volume One 1702–1711. Volume Two 1712–1719. Volume Three 1720–1728, The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire [n.d.]. Margaret, Blundell, ed., Blundell's Diary and Letter Book 1702–1728, Liverpool 1952.Google Scholar
54 Margaret Blundell, p. 157.
55 Frank Tyrer, vol. 2, p. 170 and p. 172. In ‘Flanders’ Blundell and his family lived most of the time at Dunkirk and Gravelines. The Great Diurnal contains some references to ‘Mr. Medcalf stationer’ (vol. 1, p. 36 and vol. 3, p. 116), and to ‘Mr. Medcalf surgeon’ (vol. 3, p. 115) both living in London, but because of the precise nature of the other qualifications (‘Pothecary’ and ‘late book-seller’) and because they all occur in the same diary, it seems safer to regard these two as different persons.
56 After the passing of an Act of Clemency in the summer of 1717, many fugitives decided to return to England.
57 For John Metcalfe, alias Collingwood, see Henry, Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, 7 vols, London 1878–83, vol. 5, pp. 433–4Google Scholar and p. 698; for Robert and Charles Collingwood, see vol. 5, pp. 420–1, p. 433 and p. 949 and Holt, The English Jesuits, p. 63.
58 Cyril, J. Weale, M., ed., ‘Registers of the Catholic Chapels Royal and of the Portuguese Embassy Chapel 1662–1829’, CRS, London 1941, p. 42 and p. 162.Google Scholar Perhaps Mary Frances Mondehare was the daughter of John Mondehare of Westminster, merchant (see document 157 DD 4 P, dated 10 July 1722, in the Nottinghamshire Archives).
59 The Records of the Forfeited Estates Commission, P.R.O. Handbooks No. 12, London 1968, pp. 1–9.
60 John, O. Payne, ed., Records of the English Catholics of 1715, London, 1889, p. 102.Google Scholar The payment of an annuity to Robert Collingwood by Christopher and Thomas Metcalfe, and also occasionally Thomas Meighan, continued till Collingwood's death in 1740 (‘Obligations and Donations book 1730–1738’, Farm Street Archives, London, ref. 7/2).
61 PCC ‘Allegations’, ‘Probate lawsuit Lutley vs Metcalfe’ PROB 18/44/55.
62 Philip Lutley (b. c. 1675) married Penelope Barneby (b. 1679) on 11 Dec. 1707. At the Shropshire Archives (6683/1/2, no. 38) there is a copy of the will of Philip Lutley of Henwick in Hollow, Worcs., dated 8 May 1728.
63 Geoffrey, L. Grant, English State Lotteries 1694–1826, London, 2001.Google Scholar
64 The relevant National Archives documents are: DEL 1/395, DEL 1/412, DEL 2/51, PROB 18/44/55, PROB 18/44/63, C 11/124/3, C 11/281/4, C 11/792/23, C 11/792/36 and C 11/955/14.
65 Cornwall Record Office: AR/4/8, AR/4/15, AR/4/29, AR/4/121, AR/4/202, AR/4/406–AR/4/407, AR/4/668, AR/4/669, AR/4/714, AR/4/747, AR/4/748, AR/4/803, AR/4/960, AR/4/1284, AR/4/1306, AR/4/1338, AR/4/1483, AR/4/1686-AR/4/1687, AR/4/1730, AR/4/1776, AR/4/1951, AR/4/1986. This and the following paragraph are based on the extensive calendar of the documents, not on the documents themselves.
66 AR/4/121, dated 26 March 1725.
67 Probably John Bellings Arundell of Lanherne (c. 1686–1729).
68 ‘Thomas Hodgson, Apothecary, Drury Lane, London’ (Wallis, Eighteenth Century Medics, p. 293).
69 See AR/13/11 and AR/4/1284.
70 PCC PROB 11/678.
71 AR/4/29, AR/4/1686-AR/4/1687, AR/4/1730.
72 East Riding of Yorkshire Archives, ‘Records of the Chichester-Constable family’, DDCC, especially DDCC/133/48 (25 July 1730), DDCC/135/61 (1730–4 July 1732), DDCC/133/49 (21 September 1732). William Constable (c. 1654–1718) succeeded his brother Robert (c. 1651–1714) as 4th Viscount Dunbar in 1714. In June 1716 he took the oaths for the Protestant Succession and for disabling papists (DDCC/135/54).
73 DDCC/135/61.
74 DDCC/133/49.
75 Cuthbert Tunstall took the name of Constable in 1718, after William Lord Dunbar had bequeathed to him in tail the estate of Burton Constable (see John, Kirk, Biographies of English Catholics in the eighteenth century, ed. Pollen, J. H. and Edwin, Burton, London 1909, pp. 52–4).Google Scholar Charles Fairfax, Viscount Fairfax acted on behalf of Cuthbert Constable in some transactions. This was probably Charles Gregory Fairfax, 9th Viscount Fairfax of Emly (d. 1772), who succeeded to the estate in the early 1720s (see Hugh, Aveling, ‘The Catholic Recusancy of the Yorkshire Fairfaxes’, Part III, Recusant History, 6/1, January 1961, pp. 12–54).Google Scholar
76 George Brudenell, Lord Brudenell (1685–1732) became 3rd Earl of Cardigan in 1703. The executors were his widow Elizabeth, Countess of Cardigan, Charles Lord Bruce, Baron of Whorleton, the Hon. James Brudenell, brother of George Brudenell, and John Robinson, of Cramley, Northamptonshire.
77 William Sutton acted as a trustee for Thomas Metcalfe and Cuthbert Constable in the matter of the assignment of the legacy of William Lord Dunbar (DDCC/42/5, 25 July 1730).
78 Christopher Wilkinson, of Thorphall, was involved in a transaction with Marmaduke Tunstall concerning the estate of Wycliffe Hall in Yorkshire (DDCC/130/126, ‘Mid 18th cent.’).
79 In various pre-1743 documents Metcalfe's name also crops up, but the manuscript referred to here seems the most systematic record of Metcalfe's financial dealings. Apart from Metcalfe's account there are quite a few similar accounts of other wealthy Catholics.
80 This particular bond later forms part of Metcalfe's legacy. See appendix 3.
81 Either Sir John Tichborne (1679–1748), who between 1723 and his death lived mostly at Ghent, or John Tichborne (1694–1772), who in the period 1718–1745 lived mainly at St. Omers and Watten (Holt, The English Jesuits, p. 247).
82 See notes 107 and 108.
83 See note 127.
84 In Elizabeth Guise-Barrow and Lillian Lascelles, ‘Churchwardens Presentments 1664–1768’, The Worcestershire Recusant, no. 21, June 1973, there is a reference, for October 1749, to ‘Mr. James Barnaby, Papist’, of Whittington, just south of the City of Worcester (p. 34).
85 Martha Meighan was Thomas Meighan senior's wife; on her husband's death in 1753 she continued the business.
86 See Gillow, A literary and biographical history, vol. 5, under Thomas Meighan.
87 PCC PROB 11/789. At the East Riding of Yorkshire Archives there is a copy of the will (DDCC/134/42). In the annotations to the will, the identification of the persons mentioned will be given, as far as is possible.
88 She was still alive in 1743. As late as 29 January 1743 the Jesuits received the annual payment of £3.3.0 from Mrs. Mary Metcalfe for her sister Dorothy Barneby, nun at Antwerp (General survey ledger, ‘Province Accounts 1729–1765’, Farm Street Archives).
89 In the ‘Province Accounts 1728–1765’, Farm Street Archives (ref. 7/3), there is a payment of £21 on 23 December 1746 to Richard Pickard, Thomas Metcalfe's coachman (f. 74r).
90 Cornelius Murphy or Morphy (1696–1766) was Rector of St. Ignatius College (the London District) from 1748 till his death (Foley, Records, vol. VI, p. 65 and vol. VII, p. 533 and Holt, The English Jesuits, p. 173). For details of Metcalfe's directions to Murphy as to the distribution of the money see the ‘Province Accounts 1751–1793’, Farm Street Archives (ref. 7/4, ff. 279–80). In the years 1748–1749 Murphy was temporarily Jesuit Provincial during the absence of Henry Sheldon. Edwin, H. Burton, The Life and Times of Bishop Challoner(1691–1781), 2 vols, London 1909,Google Scholar has interesting information on the disagreement between the Jesuits in the person of Cornelius Murphy, and Bishop Richard Challoner concerning the attitude to be adopted towards James III (vol. 1, pp. 259–61).
91 Seep. 139–40.
92 So far, no evidence has been found for this. In the ‘Province Accounts 1728–1765’ at the Farm Street Archives (ref. 7/3), there are several payments in the period 1746–1750 between Metcalfe and ‘Flemish’, i.e. Flemish and French, partners (‘Hovelt’ and ‘Dedier’, f. 74r).
93 Seep. 141.
94 Archdiocesan Archives Westminster A/40/75; AAW/A/41/89 is an, undated, list, in Richard Challoner's handwriting, of 51 names of ‘Poor Trades people & families reduced by sickness’; AAW/A/41/93 contains a number of undated notes and jottings concerning various charity funds, Stourton, Metcalfe etc. For a brief discussion of the Metcalfe fund see Eamon Duffy, ‘Richard Challoner 1691–1781: A Memoir’, in Eamon, Duffy, ed., Challoner and his Church, London 1981, pp. 1–26,Google Scholar esp. p. 9.
95 He recommends ‘India Bonds, Fen Bonds & such Securities payable on a fix'd day’ (AAW/A/40/75).
96 In the margins of the second codicil, of 10 July 1750, there is an account in a very small, neat hand, dated 4 March 1775, of the developments since 1751.
97 A note by the Jesuit Rector of Watten, Henry Corbie, of 9 August 1751, states that after speaking to Thomas Metcalfe he was sure that Metcalfe would not mind Challoner and Murphy deviating from his strict directions if they were to find them too intricate (AAW, MSS Archiv. Westmon. Vol. XL, A.D. 1734–1758, f. 76). In January 1762 Challoner writes about certain of Metcalfe's directions that they are ‘visibly impractical’ (AAW, MSS Archiv. Westmon. Vol. XLI, A.D. 1758–1781, document 20).
98 The death certificate is on microfilm at the Archives du Nord in Lille (5 Mi 26 R52), the original document is in the Town Hall at Watten.
99 We would like to thank the National Archives for permission to print a transcript of the text of the will.
100 Besides Drury Lane and Chelsea, this is the third known address of Thomas Metcalfe in London. It is obvious that he had moved up in the world since his bookselling days.
101 This is probably a kind of property-tax, or ‘rates’. The church of St. Christopher le Stocks was situated on the south side of Threadneedle Street in Broadstreet Ward; it was demolished in 1781.
102 Mary, Ann, Elizabeth, Thomas, Penelope and Joseph were the six children of Joseph Marshall, the elder, and they were cousins of Lettice Barneby of Worcester, ‘spinster’ (see the will of Lettice or Laetitia Barneby, dated 16 September 1718, PCC PROB 11/580). Lettice Barneby was a sister of Richard Barneby of Brockhampton in Herefordshire (1644–1719/1729). Thomas Metcalfe's wife, Mary Barneby, must have been an aunt to the Marshall sisters, hence ‘nieces’. In the 1775 marginal notes to the will of Thomas Metcalfe there is mention of an ‘indenture of mortgage’, dated 6 May 1743, where Ann and Mary Marshall are referred to as of the parish of St. George, Bloomsbury.
103 Possibly this James Barneby, brother of Mary Metcalfe, was identical with the James Barneby who was registered as a papist at Worcester in 1749 (see note 84). The parish registers of St. John in Bedwardine, Worcester, record the baptism on 8 November 1677 of a James Barneby, son of William and Elizabeth Barneby.
104 John Dandridge of Worcester married Penelope Marshall (see note 102) on 31 May 1732 at Birlingham, Worcester. Their daughter Penelope Dandridge married Michael Biddulph (1725–1800) on 14 September 1757 (FamilySearch.org). The Biddulphs were an old Catholic gentry family in Staffordshire, who later moved to Berkshire. For John Dandridge jr, the eldest son of John Dandridge of Worcester, see note 125.
105 Vincent, Perkins and William Acton of Wolverton Hall, Pershore, Worcestershire, were born c. 1720 in Berkshire, as sons of William and Margaret Acton. Perkins married Philadelphia Stapylton about 1760, and William (d. 1763) married Ann Tyler (FamilySearch.org; Aileen, M. Hodgson, ‘The Actons of Wolverton Hall, Worcestershire’, Worcestershire Recusant, no. 37, June 1981, pp. 26–35).Google Scholar Geoffrey Holt, St. Omers and Bruges Colleges, has an entry on William Acton (p. 15). In the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archives, and in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Records Office there are documents giving Vincent Acton of Harvington Hall, ‘gentleman’, as the agent of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Buckland in Berkshire (resp. DRS/1819 and DR 5).
106 Not identified. The Duke of Norfolk in question was Edward 9th Duke of Norfolk (1680–1777) who succeeded his brother Thomas in 1732.
107 John Maire, youngest son of Thomas Maire of Hardwick Hall, co. Durham, and of Lartington Hall, co. Yorkshire, was counsellor of Gray's Inn. Upon the death of his brother Thomas he succeeded to the Hardwick and Lartington estates. He was Lord Arundell of Wardour's lawyer, and also acted for several other Catholic noble families such as the Smythes of Acton Burnell. He died 30 September 1771. See Joseph, Gillow and Richard, Trappes-Lomax, eds, The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, CRS, vol. 8, London 1910, p. 368.Google Scholar
108 Anthony Wright of Wealdside, co. Essex and of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, banker, married Ann Biddulph and they had five sons: Anthony, Charles, Francis, Richard and Thomas. From 1729 till his death, c. 1786, he conducted the firm, acting for Catholic families such as the Langdales, the Lawsons and the Blounts. See Holt, St. Omers and Bruges Colleges, pp. 295–7; Marie, B. Rowlands, English Catholics of parishand town 1558–1778, CRS, 1999, p. 303;Google Scholar The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, p. 439. Several years before his death Thomas Metcalfe had dealings with both John Maire and Anthony Wright (‘Province Accounts 1728–1765’, Farm Street Archives, ref. 7/3, f. 73v).
109 Probably Mary Giffard, the widow of Thomas Giffard of Chillington, née Thimelby. At her husband's death in 1718, she retired to Longbirch, where she died 13 February 1753, at the age of 95. Or else, the 3rd wife of Peter Giffard of Blackladies and from 1718 of Chillington who died in 1746: Helen, daughter of Robert Roberts, of Plas-Ucha, co. Flint. For the Giffards see ‘Catholic chapels in Staffordshire’, Staffordshire Catholic History, no. 14, 1974, pp. 302–4.
110 Presumably Mary Arundell, widow of John Bellings Arundell (c. 1686–1729), née Compton, or else Anne, the second wife of Henry, 6th Baron Arundell of Wardour (1694–1746), née Herbert, who died in 1757.
111 Leonard Metcalfe, the squire of Nuthill (d. 1749) and his wife Anne (d. 1747) had four sons and one daughter; two of their sons, Thomas and William, entered Douai College 14 May 1735. See James, Rae Baterden, ‘The Catholic Registers of Nut Hill and Hedon in Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire’, Miscellanea, CRS, vol. 35, London 1936, pp. 325–67;Google Scholar Aveling, H., Post-Reformation Catholicism in East Yorkshire 1558–1790, York 1960, pp. 47–8, 56.Google Scholar
112 William Constable (1721–1791), of Burton Constable, Yorkshire, son of Cuthbert Constable, formerly Tunstall, succeeded his father in 1747. He was thought by many of his co-religionists to cherish dangerously liberal views. See Aveling, Post-Reformation Catholicism, p. 53, and Leo, Gooch, ‘The Religion for a Gentleman: The Northern Catholic Gentry in the Eighteenth Century’, Recusant History, 23/4, 1997, pp. 543–68,Google Scholar esp. pp. 554–61.
113 For Cornelius Murphy see note 90.
114 See notes 94, 95 and 97. For details of the payments under the Metcalfe Fund see ‘Bishop Challoner's Ledger 1732–1780’ at the Archdiocesan Archives Westminster (no shelf-mark). On 25 April 1755 Challoner still had the total amount of £2300, in ‘French actions’, paying the stipulated smaller sums from the interest (AAW, MSS Archiv. Westmon. Vol. XLI A.D. 1758–1781).
115 William Thornburgh (d.4 March 1750), President of Douai College 1739–1750. The Douay College Diaries. The Seventh Diary 1715–1778 has an entry for 16 February 1751, i.e. 1752, registering the death of Thomas Metcalfe, ‘insignis hujus Collegii Benefactor’. In his letter of 21 June 1750 to Richard Challoner, Thomas Metcalfe recommends ‘any of Mr. Dandridges sons to ye said Fund’ (see note 94).
116 Sir Thomas Webb, 4th Baronet, of Great Canford, co. Dorset (d. 1763) succeeded his father Sir John Webb, 3rd Baronet, in 1745. Sir Thomas Webb was a brother of Anna Maria Webb, who married James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater.
117 Either Sir George Heneage, Knt, of Hainton, Lincolnshire (1674–1732), or less likely, his eldest son George, Heneage (The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’, p. 368).Google Scholar
118 Rev. Thomas Barneby alias Thompson (1727–1783) was a nephew of Thomas Metcalfe's wife. He left for the mission in September 1753, having arrived at Douai College in 1738. He worked in Norfolk till 1769, when he moved to Staffordshire (Harris, Douay College Documents, p. 386). In the Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives there are letters to the Rev. Thomas Barneby (Z3/4/50), and there is a letter from Bishop Stonor to Bishop Hornyold concerning Thomas Barneby (Z5/3/89).
119 An entry in the ‘Rosary Confraternity Lists at Bornhem and in the North of England’ for 12 March 1767, suggests that Sara Burnham was a Dominican, nun at Bornhem (Miscellanea, CRS, vol. 14, London 1914, p. 215).Google Scholar The ‘Province Accounts 1728–1765’, Farm Street Archives (ref. 7/3) record payments to her, e.g. on 8 April 1757, to ‘Mr. Corbie on account of a Legacy [i.e. Thomas Metcalfe's] to Mrs. Burnham’ (f. 73v).
120 Henry Fermor (d. 1746), of Tusmore and Somerton, whose eldest son William Fermor (1737–1806) married Frances Errington. See John, Ingamells, A dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701–1800, New Haven & London 1997, pp. 352–3.Google Scholar
121 Charles, Lord Bruce, Baron of Whorleton, son of Thomas Bruce, 3rd Earl of Elgin and 2nd Earl of Ailesbury (16557–1741) who was imprisoned as a Jacobite in 1690 and 1696.
122 John Corbie or Corby (1691–1751) and Joseph Hicks (1718–1755) were both Jesuit laybrothers. Corbie died at St. Omers in 1751, Hicks at Rome in 1755. See Foley, Records, vol. VII, p. 168 and p. 368 and Holt, The English Jesuits, p. 59 and p. 117.
123 For Dorothy Barneby see note 88.
124 Perhaps the above-mentioned wine-merchant or the ‘John White of Dover Street, St. Martins in the Fields, school-master’, who occurs in a list of popish recusants in the county of Middlesex of 1715–1716 (The National Archives, FECI/1215 and FECI/1216; see note 42).
125 At the Worcestershire Record Office there are some legal documents variously dated to the 1760s (899:749/8782/46/11/5–6–7–8), showing that John Dandridge of Worcester City, eldest son of John Dandridge (see note 104), married Letitia Strange of Southampton Row, in the parish of St. George, Bloomsbury, in 1760. They went to live in the Commandery, a stately mansion, in Sidbury, Worcester.
126 Henry Corby or Corbie, Jesuit (1700–1765) was Rector of Watten and Master of novices from June 1745 till July 1756, when he was elected Provincial (Foley, Records, vol. VII, p. 168 and Holt, The English Jesuits, p. 69). See also note 97.
127 William Newton, Jesuit (1683/4–1756) was Procurator at Watten from 1728 to 1746, when he became Procurator at St. Omers College where he died in 1756 (Foley, Records, vol. VII, p. 546 and Holt, The English Jesuits, p. 178.
128 The will concludes with a testimony by Henry Corbie, of the parish of St. Ann, Westminster, and Elizabeth Rigg, of the parish of St. Giles in the Fields, dated 11 July 1751, to the effect that the will with all the interlineations was the proper handwriting of Thomas Metcalfe. Henry Corbie and Elizabeth Rigg were ‘sworn to the truth of this affidavit before me, Rob: Chapman surrogate present Hen: Stevens’.