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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
... in no English city is there a greater need for prudence in ecclesiastical matters than in the great city of Liverpool. That world famous seaport has too often heard the cries of religious factions and has too often seen violence and bloodshed as the result of clashes between professing Christians. There is every reason why the heads and leaders of the various denominations should teach their people both by precept and example, to wipe out the old stain on Liverpool's good name and to gild the city's escutcheon with nobler usages.
Richard Downey on becoming Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool in 1928 seems to have anticipated The Tablet’s admonition. Downey indeed seems to have begun his episcopate (1928–1953) with a determination to change the public perception of Catholicism in his diocese and in the city of Liverpool in particular. In late twentieth century terminology he engaged in a ‘re-branding exercise’. He withdrew support for a specifically Catholic political party in Liverpool, which had been favoured by his predecessor Archbishop Keating. He emphasised the civic commitment and the ‘Englishness’ of the Catholic community, moderating the impression that the Catholic community in Liverpool was essentially Irish. Thus although St. Patrick’s Day would continue to be celebrated, so would St. George’s Day. Additionally the blessings conferred on the world by the British Empire would be fulsomely acknowledged. Catholics would be seen to be part of the mainstream community contributing to its fullness and development. They would cease to be perceived as an alien irritant in the body politic.
1 The Tablet 1930 (2), 4 October 1930, pp. 429–430.
2 Richard Downey was born in Kilkenny on 5 May 1881 the eldest of the three children of Thomas and Minnie (Casey) Downey. The family moved to Liverpool and Downey was educated at Our Lady Immaculate elementary school. In 1894 he entered the junior seminary, St. Edward’s College, Everton and in 1901 moved to the senior seminary, St. Joseph’s, Upholland. He was ordained in 1907. Having demonstrated high academic ability he was sent to Rome for postgraduate study and was awarded a D.D. at the Gregorian University in 1911. On his return to England he was attached to the Catholic Missionary Society and spent the next fifteen years lecturing and preaching throughout the country and as a visiting lecturer and preacher in the United States. He was the co-founder and first editor of the Catholic Gazette, the monthly publication of the C.M.S. He was elected to membership of the British Psychological Society and to an honorary fellowship of the Philosophical Society. In 1926 he was appointed Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St. Joseph’s and in 1927 became Vice-Rector of the college. When he was appointed Archbishop of Liverpool in 1928 at the age of 47 he was the youngest Archbishop in the Catholic Church. What is perhaps more remarkable is that he was appointed archbishop without any previous experience as a bishop. Dictionary of National Biography 1951–1960 (Oxford, 1971) pp. 309–311.
3 Davies, Sam, Liverpool Labour: Social and Political Influences on the Development of the Labour Party in Liverpool, 1900–1939 (Keele, Staffordshire, 1996) p. 70.Google Scholar
4 The stress on the ‘Englishness’ of the Catholic community and the contribution of Catholics to the wider community had been a feature of the campaign, led by the Catholic M.P. for Ormskirk, Francis Blundell, which had culminated in the Catholic Relief Act of 1926. Davies, J., ‘The Catholic Relief Act of 1926’, North West Catholic History, vol. XXIX (2002) pp. 109–132.Google Scholar Downey’s efforts at ‘rebranding’ were never as successful as he would have wished, as was illustrated in 1937 during the dispute in Liverpool over the implementation of the 1936 Education Act. The Liverpolitan, a monthly whose target readership was middle class Liverpool, constantly emphasised the link between ‘Irish’ and Catholic. ‘For the best part of a century the priests of Rome have enjoyed the undivided reverence and obedience of the Irish Catholic community of Liverpool… If the Irish Catholics in Liverpool got a general credit and debit account from the Corporation they would be astonished at the big balance against them… Liverpolitan, vol. VI (1937) October 1937, p. 1.
5 Downey, for example, used the March 1939 St. Patrick’s Day celebration to denounce the recent I.R.A. campaign in England. ‘In a civilised community, terrorism wherever it appears, and in whatever cause, must be wiped out’. Liverpool Daily Post, 17 March 1939.
6 Downey, R., Pulpit and Platform Addresses (London, 1933) pp. 36–41.Google Scholar
7 Neal, Frank, Sectarian Violence: the Liverpool Experience 1819–1914 (Manchester, 1988)Google Scholar passim, Waller, P. J., Democracy and Sectarianism: A Political and Social History of Liverpool 1868–1939 (Liverpool, 1981)Google Scholar passim.
8 Downey, , Pulpit and Platform Addresses, pp. 60–66.Google Scholar
9 Downey, , Pulpit and Platform Addresses, p. 73 Google Scholar. Frank Boyce, commenting on Downey’s Catholic Emancipation centenary sermons and on his first sermon as Archbishop of Liverpool, makes a broadly similar point about Downey’s attempt to change the image of Liverpool Catholicism. Frank Boyce, ‘Irish Catholicism in Liverpool; The 1920s and the 1930s’ in Buckland, P. and Belchem, J., eds, The Irish in British Labour History (Liverpool, 1992) pp. 86–97 and 89–90.Google Scholar
10 Cathedral Record, vol. V. 1935, p. 1613.
11 Cannadine, D., Ornamentalism: How the British saw their Empire (London, 2001) p. 5 Google Scholar. Cannadine quotes Cecil Rhodes ‘… the British are the finest race in the world, and the more of the world they inhabit, the better it will be for mankind’. For Mannix’s abortive attempt to visit Liverpool in August 1920 cf. The Times, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 August, 1920.
12 Cathedral Record, vol. VI, 1936, p. 101.
13 Cathedral Record, vol VI, pp. 105–106.
14 Albert Augustus David was born in Exeter in May 1867, the second son of the Reverend William David, at that time the principal of Exeter Diocesan Training College for Schoolmasters. David won an open classical scholarship from Exeter School to Queen’s College, Oxford from which he graduated with a double first in classics (1887) and humanities (1889). After ordination in the Church of England he followed a career as a schoolmaster being an assistant master at Bradfield and Rugby. He became head of Clifton College, Bristol in 1905 and head of Rugby School in 1909. He was awarded a D.D. in 1910 and having, reputedly, turned down a number of bishoprics became bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1921. He became bishop of Liverpool in 1923. He retired in 1944 and died on 24 December 1950 at Trebetherick, Cornwall. Liverpool was a challenging prospect for its new bishop. It had, as David acknowledged a strong Evangelical tradition, but equally there was a significant Anglo-Catholic presence. During the episcopacy of Liverpool’s first bishop, John Charles Ryle, a prominent Evangelical, there had been a highly publicised campaign against Ritualism, the use by some Anglican clergy of ‘Romanist elements’ in the Church’s liturgical practice. Waller, P. J., Democracy and Sectarinism: A Political and Social History of Liverpool 1868–1939 (Liverpool, 1981) pp. 172ffGoogle Scholar. See also Michael Croft, ‘Richard Hobson and the Anglican Church in 19th Century Liverpool’ in Davies, J. A. and Hollinshead, J. E., eds., A Prominent Place: Studies in Merseyside History (Liverpool, 2000) pp. 57–67 Google Scholar. Ritualism continued to be a subject of dispute into the 1930s.
15 The decree Ne Temere (Less Perhaps) was issued by Pope Pius X (subsequently canonised) in 1907 and was to take effect at Easter 1908. All Latin rite Catholics were bound by the juridical form of marriage laid down by the Church when they married, even when they married non-Catholics. The juridical form required the presence of the ordinary, or the parish priest, or a priest delegated by either. The presence of at least two other witnesses was also required. The canonical form of marriage laid down by Ne Temere was incorporated into the Code of Canon Law which went into effect in May 1918 in the Pontificate of Benedict XV. New Catholic Encyclopaedia (Washington, 2003).
16 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. V, July 1930, p. 234.
17 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. V, October 1930, p. 401. Liverpool Diocesan Leaflet, October 1930. David had started the practice of holding a Liverpool Lecture each year in the autumn. In 1930 the Liverpool Lecture became three lectures given by Coulton.
18 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. V, November 1930, p. 459.
19 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. V, November 1930, p. 438.
20 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. V, November 1930, p. 463.
21 The Tablet, 1930(2) 4 October, pp. 429–431.
22 The Cambridge historian G. G. Coulton, born 1858, had been for a short period an ordained minister of the Church of England. By the time he gave the Liverpool lectures be was over seventy years old and had a reputation as an anti-Catholic controversialist. As well as historical texts he had written a string of controversial pamphlets, see for example Roman Catholic accuracy: a public correspondence between G. G. Coulton and the Reverend Herbert Thurston, S.J. (London, 1927). In his autobiography in 1943 Coulton accepted that he had spent thirty years attacking the Catholic historian, the ‘superficial’ Cardinal Gasquet, of whom he said, ‘inaccuracy grew upon him like a crust’. G. G. Coulton, Four Score Years: an autobiography (Cambridge, 1943). Coulton accepted that nearly all of his work had this ‘controversial twinge’ but claimed that his aim had been ‘destruction for construction’s sake’. Such, however, was not the judgement even of those who had some sympathy for him. Kingsley Martin, the editor of The New Statesman, who had been a student of Coulton’s at Cambridge, remembered him denouncing any Catholic who dared ‘to poke up a propagandist head before a Cambridge audience’ and had found him irritating in controversy. Sarah Campion, Father: A Portrait of G. G. Coulton at Home (London, 1948) p. 9. His former pupil and eventual obituarist, H. S. Bennett, argued that in the championship of what Coulton saw as a moderate Protestant position, he took an uncompromising attitude, which although central to his own convictions, was unwelcome to many. His strongly expressed religious views had led to his entanglement in a number of prolonged and stormy conflicts with Catholics, which ‘in the opinion of many raised more dust and heat than light’. Dictionary of National Biography, 1941–1950 (London, 1950) pp. 180–181, and British Academy: Proceedings, vol. 33, 1947, pp. 267–281. Coulton’s daughter, Sarah Campion, greatly regretted that her father had been an obsessed controversialist. ‘We simply had to live with and endure for weeks on end, a dear man who had temporarily lost his reason and become something quite fiendish in consequence…a man who spent his waking hours being very, very angry, and his sleeping hours in chewing over the rag of that rage once more in his distressed dreams’. Campion, Father, pp. 235–236.
23 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. V, November 1930, p. 460.
24 Coulton, G. G., In Defence of the Reformation: Three Lectures delivered at the Central Hall, Liverpool (London, 1931) pp. 94–96.Google Scholar
25 Liverpool Daily Post, 4 November 1930.
26 Coulton himself, however, continued his own personal controversy, notably with The Tablet, which had challenged his view in one of the Liverpool lectures that 136 beatified Catholic martyrs had not died for a religious cause but as political rebels. The Tablet 1930 (2), 11 October, p. 471, 18 October, p. 519, 25 October, p. 554, 1 November, pp. 569–574, 8 November pp. 606–607, 15 November, pp. 644–645. Coulton published the three Liverpool lectures with a number of appendices in 1931, G. G. Coulton, In Defence of the Reformation. Coulton described as ‘ludicrous’ Downey’s attempt ‘to pose as the uninjurious lamb’, p. xviii. He was determined to show how ‘treacherous’ Downey’s memory was when he had complained that the criticism of the Catholic was an attack on ‘quiet uninjurious folk’ who had carefully refrained from criticising their rivals, p. xx. The lectures of Grimley and Dudley Owen had been deliberately arranged at a time when it was known that he could not be present to cross examine his critics, p. xxiiii. Appendices were devoted to Downey, pp. 89ff., The Daily Post, pp. 94ff., The Tablet, pp. 107–166. For the right to publish the entire correspondence between himself and The Tablet he had paid a fee of ten guineas, which had been donated by Oldmeadow to the Liverpool Catholic Cathedral Fund.
27 Until 1931 Bishop David acted as Dean as well as Bishop of Liverpool. In 1931 he established the Cathedral Chapter and Dwelly was appointed Dean. Russell, Eric, Not a Dead See: Some People and Episodes in the Life of the Diocese of Liverpool 1880–1996 (Southport, 1996) pp. 40–41.Google Scholar
28 The Times, 10 November 1930.
29 The Times, 11 November 1930.
30 The Times, 12 November 1930.
31 Liverpool Daily Post, 11 November 1930.
32 Liverpool Daily Post, 11 November 1930.
33 The Times, 13 November 1930, Liverpool Daily Post, 13 November 1930.
34 Liverpool Daily Post, 14 November 1930, The Times, 15 November 1930.
35 Liverpool Daily Post, 17 November 1930. In The Papers of Bishop Albert David, Lambeth Palace Library, Mss 3579 there are a number of extracts from letters which complain about the behaviour of Catholic priests in cases of mixed marriages, cf. f. 79 and f. 86. These extracts cover cases in Everton, St. Helens, Lambeth, London, Manchester, Wigan and Southport. Some of the cases dated back several years. There are also copies of letters of complaint from Catholic women married to non-Catholics complaining of pressure from Catholic priests, e.g. f. 87 and f. 90, two copies of the same letter from a woman in Dingle, Liverpool, and f. 107 from a woman in Southport, from which an extract appears in f. 86. Perhaps the most interesting letters on this subject in David’s Papers are from a Catholic priest, a Jesuit, Fr. Charles de Vere Beauclerk, who was based in Accrington. de Vere Beauclerk, who was at some pains to make David aware of his pedigree as a cousin of the Duke of St. Albans, was opposed to what he saw as the too rigorous application of Ne Temere in some Catholic dioceses, for example Liverpool. Pope Pius X had never envisaged the ‘vast amount of misery’ of which David complained when he set out to unify Catholic marriage law. de Vere Beauclerk claimed he had been unable to get his views published in the Catholic press; he sent a copy of these to David, f. 108. Beauclerk to David, 16 November, 1930, ff. 109–113, statement of Beauclerk’s views, f. 116, Beauclerk to David, 18 November 1930, f. 119 Beauclerk to David, 21 November 1930, f. 129, Beauclerk to David, undated but the accompanying typescript of his Principles is dated 5 December 1930, ff. 130–135. I am grateful to a reader for Recusant History, for drawing my attention to these papers of Bishop David.
36 A close scrutiny of Downey’s papers, The Downey Collection, in the archives of the Archdiocese of Liverpool has failed to produce this private letter of David. The search yielded one letter from David to Downey in 1935 and a brief correspondence in 1940 between Downey and David concerning Downey’s refusal to take part in a joint memorial service in Anfield cemetery for war victims. There are no private letters between David and Downey in The Papers of Bishop Albert David in Lambeth Palace Library. There is also no evidence in Downey’s papers of correspondence between Downey and individual priests on the issue of Ne Temere. Neither is there any specific reference to Ne Temere in Downey’s Ad Clerum. During Downey’s episcopate the Archdiocese of Liverpool subscribed to a news cuttings’ service. There is a comprehensive collection of cuttings from the national, local and religious press on the Downey/David controversy. These have been pasted into scrapbooks and placed in the archives.
37 Liverpool Daily Post, 19 November 1930.
38 Liverpool Daily Post, 19 November 1930. David may have been privately shaken by this criticism of his failure to understand Catholic Canon Law regarding valid marriages for he sought an opinion from a judge, H. C. Dowdall, an Anglican. Dowdall confirmed that Downey’s explanation of Canon Law was indeed ‘technically correct’. He referred David ‘for practical enlightenment on the relevant law’ to Cardinal Gaspari’s Corpus Juris Canonici, which was excellent. The Papers of Bishop David, f. 122 H. C. Dowdall to David, 4 December 1930, f. 144 Dowdall to David, 17 December 1930, f. 145 Dowdall to David, 21 December 1930.
39 Liverpool Daily Post, 1 December 1930. In the extant papers of both Downey and David there is no evidence of any discussion with civic leaders of the possible damage to the reputation of the city or to Anglican–Catholic relations in Liverpool of the dispute between the two church leaders.
40 David gathered together a number of extracts of letters he had received in the last months of 1930. In these extracts there are two references to the mental health problems of women involved in mixed marriage disputes. The Rev K. G. Gates of Everton claimed in a case that he was dealing with that ‘the priests had been so ‘‘persecuting’’ the woman is obviously a nervous wreck…’ and ‘Well-wisher’ knew of a case ‘when this persecution caused a woman to worry so much that she was eventually removed to a mental hospital’. The Papers of Bishop David, f. 85.
41 The Times, 3 December 1930, The Liverpool Daily Post, 3 December 1930.
42 The Times, 3 December 1930.
43 This was perhaps particularly insulting to David, who had a First in Classics from Oxford.
44 In The Papers of Bishop David, ff. 102–103, H. Williams to David, there is a complaint about the activities of the Catholic Evidence Guild in St. Helens, Lancashire. The CEG meetings complained of took place in the market area of the town. The complainant, a layman, seems to have been engaged in a long running campaign against the CEG as he refers to the fact that he had reported their activities to the local police.
45 The Times, 4 December 1930, Liverpool Daily Post, 4 December 1930.
46 The Times, 4 December 1930.
47 The Times, 4 December 1930.
48 The Times, 14 January 1931, Liverpool Daily Post, 14 January 1931.
49 This was a reference to an attack on the Notre Dame Convent in Everton Valley, which was close to the Orange stronghold in the St. Domingo Road area, in early December 1930.
50 Our Lady Immaculate, Everton, in St. Domingo Road had been attacked on 3 December 1930.
51 The Times, 14 January 1931.
52 The Times, 15 January 1931.
53 The Times, 16 January 1931.
54 The Times, 17 January 1931.
55 A lay Catholic defending the position taken by Downey suggested to David that one needed to view the behaviour of Catholic priests within the context of Catholic working-class culture. ‘Our clergy, especially in the North, are in manner and method much more “of the people” than are Anglican clergy. Their methods of tackling lax members of their flock would often, no doubt, seem rough and rather bullying if you witnessed it. But it is a method more often than not adapted to the rough customers with whom they are dealing, and is not generally resented by them’. The Papers of British David, f. 160, W. Randell to David, 24 January 1931.
56 The Times, 2 February 1931.
57 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. VI, March 1931, p. 104, The Times, 4 March 1931.
58 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. VI, January 1931, no page number.
59 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. VI, May 1931, p. 166.
60 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. VI, June 1931, p. 189.
61 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. VI, August 1931, pp. 268–271.
62 For a more considered assessment of the influence of the Catholic caucus in the Liverpool Labour Party cf. Sam Davies, Liverpool Labour: pp. 69–73.
63 Liverpool Diocesan Review, vol. XII, April 1937, pp. 113–115. A contributor to the journal, Liverpolitan, supporting David’s comments, was not as circumspect in his use of language as the bishop: ‘The Autocrat of the Lunch Table’ feared that the Irish in alliance with the Socialists would gain control of the city and ‘play the game of Tammany here to their hearts’ content… [That would lead to] the political supremacy of hordes of untrained medieval-minded peasants… over a great city, which in order to maintain its prosperity and progress must—absolutely must—remain under English control’. Liverpolitan, vol. VI, (1937), May 1937 p. 33.
64 Waller, , Democracy and Sectarianism, p. 337.Google Scholar
65 cf. Davies, J., ‘Bishop Moriarty, Shrewsbury and World War Two’, Recusant History, vol. XXV (1), pp. 133–155.Google Scholar