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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
The lives of many converts in nineteenth-century England underwent quite significant, and often drastic change as a result of their decision to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. Social ostracism, rejection by family and friends, and acceptance of the loss of professional advancement were counted among the risks of ‘going over’ to Rome. Conversion brought with it a discontinuity with the past; yet the Catholic careers of many of those received into the Church exhibit a remarkable continuity with the subject's non-Catholic past, if not in matters of doctrine and worship, then certainly in the field of social and apostolic goals. Father George Bampfield, educator of the poor and lower middle classes, and pioneer of Catholic evangelization in Hertfordshire and North Middlesex, is one such example. His career, in both its Anglican and Catholic spheres, represents the realisation, in albeit very changed circumstances, of a vision first glimpsed and a commitment made within the bosom of the Establishment.
1 For descriptions of Bampfield and Bridgett at Tonbridge see letters from Rev. Hore, A. H. in The Tablet 4 March 1899, p.335;Google Scholar 9 June 1900, p.903.
2 Green, V. H. H., Religion at Oxford and Cambridge (London, 1964), p.283.Google Scholar
3 V., H. H. Green, Oxford Common Room; A Study of Lincoln College and Mark Pattison (London, 1957) p. 127.Google Scholar
4 Ibidem, p. 136.
5 Green, Religion at Oxford and Cambridge, p.284.
6 See Cox, G. V., Recollections of Oxford (London, 1870), pp.331–32.Google Scholar
7 Graty, P., ‘Father Bampfield of Barnet’ in Finchley Catholic Record April 1932, p. 13.Google Scholar
8 See Stephens, W. R. W., The Life and Letters of Edward A. Freeman (London, 1895), vol. 1, p.58,Google Scholar Cross, F. L., Darwell Stone: Chruchman and Counsellor (Westminster, 1943), p. 13.Google Scholar
9 Hunwicke, J. W., ‘Father George Bampfield’ in The Ransomer, vol. 31, no. 6 (1991), p.27.Google Scholar
10 Green, Religion at Oxford and Cambridge p.291.
11 ‘A Life and a Work’ in St. Andrew's Magazine [Barnet], vol. 36 (1913), p.61.Google Scholar
12 See Handford, B., Lancing College: History and Memoirs (Chichester, 1986), pp.21f.Google Scholar
13 Heeney, B., Mission to the Middle Classes: The Woodard Schools 1848–1981 (London, 1969), p.75 Google Scholar
14 For Plummer's recollections of Bampfield see Hunwicke art.cit., p.27.
15 Graty art.cit., p. 13.
16 Tablet 6 August 1892, p.233.
17 See Tablet 22 December 1860, p.822; Altholz, J. L., The Liberal Catholic Movement in England: The ‘Rambler’ and its Contributors, 1848–1864 (Montreal, 1962), pp.141f;Google Scholar Gilley, S., Newman and His Age (London, 1990), pp.309–10.Google Scholar
18 Tablet 29 September 1860, pp.618–19.
19 Tablet 2 March 1861, p.139.
20 Mullen, R., Anthony Trollope: A Victorian in his World (London, 1990), pp.560–61.Google Scholar
21 Ibidem, p.560.
22 Trollope to Mary Holmes, 26 January 1875, quoted in Booth, B. A. (edit.), The Letters of Anthony Trollope (London, 1951), p.573.Google Scholar
23 Mullen, op.cit., p.560.
24 There was no Catholic priest resident at Beccles until 1889, when a mission was opened by the English Benedictines from Downside.
25 Mullen op.cit., p.561.
26 Letter from Bampfield in Tablet 4 May 1861, p.278.
27 See Tablet 21 March 1863, p. 179; 11 April 1863, p.230.
28 See Tablet 8 September 1849, p.563; Hodges, N. W., The Catholic Hand-Book (London, 1857), p.8;Google Scholar Gaynor, J. S., The English-Speaking Pallottines (Rome, 1962), esp. pp.37–38, 48–49, 80–83, 96f.Google Scholar
29 Tablet 7 December 1861, p.773; cf. Hodges op.cit., pp.10–11.
30 See Westminster Diocesan Archives W3/37, Rev. James McQuoin to Cardinal Wiseman, 30 December 1861: the Ursulines returned to England in May 1862 at the invitation of McQuoin, who had taken an interest in their work while at Moorfields, and now encouraged them to open a house at Upton, within the Stratford mission, and wherefrom developed St. Angela's, Forest Gate. Bampfield would have known of the nuns’ abortive foundation at Barnet via McQuion as well as from his own visits to the town from Waltham Cross. Faa di Bruno returned to London as Rector of St. Peter's Italian Church, Hatton Garden, and later served two terms as Rector General of the Pallottines. He died in 1889.
31 The chapel of St. Gregory was added in 1870 and that of Our Lady in 1877–78, when the nave wasextended as well; the church was completed in 1931 but suffered destruction by fire in 1973.
32 During the thirty-eight years of its existence, the Institute of St. Andrew never exceeded a total of eight priests (1893); sometime members included: Revv. David Nichols (1830–98), and former Oblate of St. Charles; William Barry (1853–94), who became prominent in child rescue work in the Diocese of Westminster; and Lewis Matthews (1856–1916), senior Catholic Chaplain to H.M. Forces. Students of the Institute who left before ordination included: William Baigent (1857–1930), Provost of Nottingham; and Ethelred Taunton (1857–1907), the historian and author, who was ordained as an Oblate of St. Charles but later transferred to the Diocese of Westminster. In addition to departures from the Institute, three priests aged under forty died in the period from 1879 to 1893.
33 See Gilley op.cit., p.385.
34 See Corbett, J., Celebration: The Story of a Parish (St. Albans, 1990), pp. 15–16;Google Scholar Tablet 10 July 1886, p.63.
35 Dessain, C. S. & Gornall, T. (edit.), The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. 29 (Oxford, 1976), p.274 (27 May 1880).Google Scholar
36 Utters and Diaries, vol. 30, p. 13 (26 October 1881).
37 Graty art.cit., p. 14.
38 Quoted in Corbett op.cit., p. 13.
39 Ibidem, p. 14.
40 See Doyle, P., Westminster Cathedral 1895–1995 (London, 1995), p.33.Google Scholar
41 For Kelvedon see Dobson, F., Centenary of the Church of St. Mary Immaculate and the Holy Archangels, Kelvedon (Kelvedon, 1975;Google Scholar reprinted 1991), passim.; for Sudbury see O'Callaghan, S. M., The Birth of a Parish and its Church of Our Lady and St. John the Evangelist, Sudbury, Suffolk (Sudbury, 1982). p.43.Google Scholar
42 See Shaw, D. H., The History of St. Michael's and the Catholic Parish of Hitchin (Hitchin, 1975) p.7f;Google Scholar a permanent church was opened on January 1902, for which Bampfield had collected nearly £1,000 at the time of his death in 1900. In the autumn of 1902 the Hitchin mission was entrusted to the Fathers of St. Edmund, newly expelled from France.
43 Tablet 16 January 1904, p. 104.
44 At New Barnet Mass was said in a former Temperance Hall from 1906; Finchley was handed over to the Diocese of Westminster in 1903, a mission hall having been constructed. This was replaced by the church of St. Alban in 1909.
45 Barnet Press 27 January 1900, p.6.
46 At the time of Bampfield's death there were 5 priests of the Institute; the oldest was aged 41. Two more priests were ordained in 1908. However, the financial straits of the Institute, particularly with regard to the operation of its schools, continued to drain its resources. Despite economies the financial situation worsened, and when the Protestant Alliance took out a libel action against Father Spink, Bampfield's successor, in 1911, the Institute found itself unable to bear the costs of legal action. An appeal for funds failed to raise the £4,450 required to meet legal expenses and to honour the debts incurred by the Institute on its many activities.’ The Institute of St. Andrew was disbanded in July 1912 and its assets sold to pay its debts.
47 Two priests of the Institute remained at Barnet to serve the parish as diocesan clergy; a diocesan priest was appointed to the New Barnet mission, and a former member of its Institute took charge of Bushey. At the time of its disbandment the Institute also supplied Mass at Borehamwood and Bushey Heath.
48 Vernon, E., ‘Catholic Celebrities XII’ in St. Luke's Magazine vol. 2 no. 6 (December 1895), p.329.Google Scholar The journal was edited by Rev. Ethelred Taunton, a former teacher at Barnet and student of the Institute of St. Andrew.