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From Hagiography to History: A Critical Re-examination of the First Forty Years of the Life’ of Mother Margaret Hallahan and of its Manuscript Sources
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Extract
The Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan by Francis Raphael Drane O.S.D., was published in 1869 to foster the reputation for sanctity of the foundress of the Dominican Congregation of St. Catherine of Siena. Though it remains a masterpiece of nineteenth century English hagiographical literature, upon which all later biographical notices of Margaret Hallahan are based, its treatment of her life from 1802 to 1842 is chronologically inaccurate, uncritically anecdotal and narrowly defined. Although Margaret Hallahan lived until she was sixty-six the first forty years of her life occupy scarcely fifty pages of a biography which runs to almost five hundred and forty pages. The Life rarely connects these years with any wider historical context nor does it investigate closely the background of those with whom Margaret Hallahan was personally associated. Consequently a critical examination of the Life's treatment of these first forty years and its overt comparison with the manuscript sources upon which it is based is a much needed and long overdue exercise.
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References
Notes
1 The Life was probably commissioned by Bishop Ullathorne and materials for it were collected from 1861 onwards. It was based on three sources: the regular archives of the Congregation; written memoirs for the Life or ‘Annals’ as they were then called; and, letters of condolence. The author, Theodosia Drane, had become a Catholic in 1860 and was later to become prioress at Stone in October 1881 upon the death of Mother Imelda Poole. A French translation of the first English edition was published in 1875. The original manuscript of the Life has not survived.
2 William, James, The Varieties Of Religious Experience, Reprinted 1904, p. 376.Google Scholar
3 Richard Underhill Plunkett (1743–1808) was the son of Thomas Plunkett and Mary Underhill. He was educated for the priesthood at the English College Rome (1758–68) and served at Lincoln's Inn Fields from 1773–1807. Matrimonial extract (T.776) and the Baptismal certificate copy (T.777) were made by Father Patrick Lyons on 18 September, 1957.
4 Rev. Patrick, Woulffe, Irish Names And Surnames, Dublin, 1923 p. 553;Google Scholar Edward, MacLysaght, Irish Families: Their Names, Arms and Origins, 1957, Appendix F, p. 313;Google Scholar Cavanagh, T.779/3.
5 Cavanagh; T.779/1. Father Cavanagh's grandmother was the wife of Thomas Hollohan, the son of James Hollahan, who was Edmund Hallahan's brother.
6 Life, p. 1.
7 Greater London Record Office, Pancras, St. Parish Lists, File P. 90,Google Scholar Burials April 1810 to December 1812, m.f. X30/55, which gives the Index to Burials for the years 1813 to 1815. Edmund Hallahan is listed on p. 43 (1813), under ‘H’, but no entries are recorded under this letter for 1814 or 1815. The burial entry appears on microfilm X30/56 as follows: (Name) Edward Hallahan; (Abode) St. Giles; (When Buried) June 20th.; (Age) 35; (By whom buried) W. B. Champneys. This entry gives his Christian name as ‘Edward’ which is surely a mistake for ‘Edmund’? Both Edmund and Catherine Hallahan died from tuberculosis for which there was no effective treatment in 1813; hospital patients received general nursing care and various herbal tonics. St. George's was then situated in Lanesborough House; it was a voluntary hospital which admitted patients free of charge. It would seem likely that Catherine Hallahan would have been admitted with the fulminating disease and died probably from a catastrophic haemotyposis shortly after admission. The bodies of those dying in St. George's Hospital were normally buried on Hospital land at Brompton which had been purchased and rented out as burial ground. It is therefore unlikely that if a patient died in St. George's they would have been buried in St. Giles cemetery unless the family had arranged this. [I owe this information to a personal communication dated 15 March 1995 from T. R. Gould, Honorary Archivist of St. George's Hospital, Tooting], William Blair's detailed account of the insanitary living conditions among the Irish poor of Giles, St. is printed contemporaneously in A History Of The Jesuits: To Which Is Prefixed A Reply To Mr. Dallas's Defence Of That Order, (1816), Volume 2, pp. 418–423.Google Scholar [See note 11 below].
8 Johanna, H. Halting, Catholic London Missions: From the Reformation to the year 1850, (1903), pp. 151–162;Google Scholar Bernard, Bogan, The Great Link: A History of St. George's Southwark 1786–1848-1948, (1948), pp. 20–31.Google Scholar
9 On p. 1 of the Life James Hollahan is spoken of as ‘a lawyer at the Temple’ but his name does not appear on the annual Law Lists for the period 1795 to 1840 and there is no one of that name or any similar name listed as either a barrister or a London attorney. Nor does his name appear on the printed admission registers of three of the four Inns of Court. [I owe this information to Mr. Guy Holborn, Librarian of Lincoln's Inn Library, in a personal communication dated 15 November 1994]. Likewise, no one by this name is listed as a barrister, attorney, or conveyancer in any of the London commercial directories [Johnstone's, Kent's, Pigot's, Robson's, or the Post Office Directory] for the period 17901830. It is more likely he worked as a clerk to an attorney, since Catholic lawyers had been confined by statute to the practice of conveyancing prior to 1791.
10 Cavanagh, T.779/1; Life, p. 3.
11 The parliamentary report is listed under ‘Education’ in Parliamentary Papers 1801–1900, vol.3, p. 799.Google Scholar The Order Papers can be examined on the Cayley-Thompson Index, mf. 17.17–20. The Minutes of Evidence comprise Four Reports which, though numbered 427, 469, 495, 497, are paginated consecutively in the Report.
12 For William Blair's evidence see Report, pp. 251–255; the quotation is from p. 254.
13 Report, pp. 1–4; Bernard Ward, The Eve of Catholic Emancipartion, v. 2, pp. 160–165.
14 Ibidem, p. 312. On June 19, being examined a second time to clarify the evidence he gave on 4 June, Finigan admitted to the Chairman, Thomas Babington, that the school currently had two names: ‘St. Giles's Irish Free School’ and ‘The St. Giles's Irish Catholic Free Schools’.
15 Ibidem, p. 4: evidence of John Kelly, Secretary and Trustee of St. Patrick's School.
16 Ibidem, pp. 4–6.
17 Evidence of Charles Butler, of Lincoln's Inn: Report, pp. 258–260. Evidence of William Poynter, Vicar Apostolic of the London District: Report, pp. 299–304. Other Catholics who appeared before the Select Committee were the Revs. James Y. Bramston (a future Vicar Apostolic), James Archer of the Bavarian Embassy Chapel and Richard Horrabin, all of whom gave evidence in succession on 15 June, Report, pp. 286–289; and the layman Joseph Booker, Secretary to the Association of Catholic Charities, who gave his evidence on 4 June, pp. 142–146.
18 Sheridan, Gilley, English Catholic Charity And The Irish Poor In London, Part 1: 1700–1840, Recusant History, Volume II (1971–72), p. 185.Google Scholar
19 Cavanagh, T.779/1–2; he goes on to say that ‘Mrs. Hallahan was a sharp clever woman who was very fond of smoking, and could tell a good story.’
20 The bulk of the material in Chapter 1 of the Life is taken from Mother Imelda Poole, Reminiscences Suggested By The MSS Life of Our Dearest Mother, 1868, AGS: T.764. Cavanagh's letter was not written until after the Life had been published.
21 Most Catholic funerals before 1791 took place in Protestant cemeteries. After 1791 it became more usual to bring the body to the chapel for the Requiem or employ a catafalque in the French fashion. St. Pancras was the favourite burial ground for Catholics and in 1805 it was extended for the use of the parish of St. Giles, the old one adjacent to St. Giles being closed. [Bernard, Ward, Catholic London ACentury Ago, (1905), pp. 184–190.]Google Scholar
22 Harting, Catholic London Missions, pp. 240–252, and James Molloy, Rev. in St. Aloysius Somers Town: A Short Account of the Foundation of the Church and a Record of Events and Personalities 1808–1958, (1958), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar In John, Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850, (1975),Google Scholar Margaret Hallahan receives the following notice on page 319; speaking of the two advantages which Ullathorne enjoyed while conducting the mission in Coventry he writes: ‘The first was the help of Margaret Hallahan, whom he brought to keep house for him, a London-born Irish woman with a good deal of experience teaching in the school attached to the London mission of Somers Town.’ It is unlikely that the French of the ‘old school’ would have imitated the novel Lancasterian method of instruction, although Mother Poole maintained, Reminiscences, T.764/4: ‘The system was what was called the Lancastrian, the now almost exploded monitorial plan.’ The Abbé Canon's biography was written by Paul, Jausions, Vie de L'Abbé Carron. Par Un Bénédictin de la Congrégation de France, 2 tom. (1866)Google Scholar and is referred to by Mother Drane when she writes ‘It is impossible to read his life without being struck … etc’ (Life, p. 6), Details of his missionary activities in Somers Town may be found in Volume 2, pp. 30–57. Public notices advertising the chapel and schools can be found in the Laity Directories, from 1803 until 1815. St. Aloysius Charity School continued to flourish under the patronage of Bishop Poynter after the Abbé Carron had returned to Paris in 1814. His Academy received no further public notice in the Laity Directories after 1815.
23 Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/4; Life, p. 5.
24 Life, p. 4; Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/5.
25 Reminiscences Of Sister M. Dorothea Rankin, T.784/1. The Life states ‘The whole period of her school life did not exceed three years, and closed when she was but nine years of age.’ (pp. 3–4). These computations are correct if we take her date of birth to have been 1803. Her removal to Kilburn would then have occurred in 1812 during her father's last illness.
26 See the Rev. Edwin Sidney The Life Of The Rev. Rowland Hill, second edition, 1834; William, Jones Memoirs Of The Life, Ministry, And Writings Of The Rev. Rowland Hill, M.A., 1834;Google Scholar and the B.B.I., m.f. 553, 33–83. Edwin Sidney wrote (p. 357) that ‘The death of Mrs. Hill took place on 17th. August 1830 at Wooton-under-Edge’. For the Trelawney connection see Edwin, Sidney, Life of Rowland Hill, p. 122.Google Scholar On Sir Harry Trelawney (1756–1834) see, Denis Gwynn, Father Luigi Gentiti And His Mission, (1951), Chapter 5, and B.B.I., mf. 1093, 315–316.
27 Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/1.
28 Cheapside is the address of over half of the lace merchants, and lace manufacturers, warehouses and wholesalers given in the standard commercial directories for London in the period 1790–1830. The main streets where they were situated were: Cheapside, Wood Street, Milk Street and Gutter Lane. Unfortunately no one by the name of Caulier is listed in any of the commercial directories as being in business there between 1790 and 1830.
29 The Rev. Joseph Robson was educated for the priesthood at the English College Rome and ordainedin 1838. He worked on the mission at Hathersage, Derbyshire from 1847 until 1870. The Reminiscences by Madame Caulier (1778–1858), dated March 1851 and taken down when she was seventy-three years of age, are referred to on p. 8 of the Life as ‘a manuscript memoir which she dictated at a later period’ which Madame Caulier calls ‘Account No. 1.’. This memoir also includedthe recollections of Mrs. Clara Thompson, which Madame Caulier calls ‘Account No. 2’, but Mrs. Thompson's recollections [AGS: T.787b] are now missing from their place in the collection of original documents used to support the Life and cannot be traced in any of the lists of documents composed. since the Life was written in 1869. The Life (p. 15) refers to these recollections as, ‘the little memoir which Mrs. Thompson drew up before her death’.
30 Caulier, Reminiscences, T.787a/2.
31 Life, p. 7.
32 Cavanagh, T.719/2–3.
33 William, Ullathorne Summary of Madame Caulier's Manuscript Account, undated but circa 1868;Google Scholar AGS: T.785/1. Life, p. 7. The Rev. Joseph Hunt was born in St. Sepulchre's parish, Newgate, London in 1765. He entered the English College Douai in 1778 and was sent to the London District in 1792, he was at Moorfields by 1800 and remained there until his death in 1841. See Godfrey, Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, Volume 4: 1716–1800, pp. 148–149,Google Scholar (1977).
34 Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/6. See also Caulier, Reminiscences, where she says, ‘I was strict andsevere with her.’ T787a/2.
35 Life, p. 9.
36 Quoted in Bernard, Ward Catholic London A Century Ago, p. 181;Google Scholar the original notice of this Catholic Agency first appeared in the Laity Directory (1804) immediately after the Obituary Lists.
37 Life, p. 11.
38 For an account of conditions of domestic service see: Jean Hecht, J. The Domestic Servant Class In Eighteenth Century England, (1956),Google Scholar and Pamela, Horn The Rise And Fall Of The Victorian Servant, (1977).Google Scholar
39 Caulier, Reminiscences, T.787a/4, 7. Life, pp. 9–10. Madame Caulier thought the thief caught in this manner was female but the Life says the thief was a male servant.
40 The original Mass houses in Ropemaker's Alley had been destroyed in June 1780, during the Gordon Riots.
41 Harting, Catholic London Missions, pp. 80–99.
42 Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/7–8 where she writes, ‘It was from her that Margaret acquired the skill she afterwards showed in nursing the sick’; see also the Life, p. 8.
43 Ullathorne, Summary, T.785/4.
44 Bernard, Ward, Catholic London, pp. 110–115.Google Scholar
45 Ullathorne, Interior Life, Section 2, ‘Mother Margaret's Virtues as they escape through her self-accu-sation’, T.756/1(27).
46 Bogan, The Great Link, pp. 20–31.
47 Caulier, Reminiscences, T.787a/13; Life, p. 13.
48 Ullathorne, Interior Life, Section 3, ‘Mother Margaret's Confesson’, T.756/1(31).
49 Ibidem, p. 33. The ‘bad books’ mentioned here were apparently the plays of Shakespeare, and the early novels of Walter Scott to which she was addicted in adolescence.
50 Caulier, Reminiscences, T.787a/10; Life, p. 13.
51 John Morgan is listed on p. 419 of P. J. and R. V. Wallis Eighteenth Century Medics (subscriptions, licences, apprenticeships), second edition, PHIBB, Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1988. His name does not appear on the manuscript copy of S. D. Clippingdale's Medical Court Roll in the possession of the Royal College of Surgeons and therefore the claim that he was a royal physician cannot be substantiated. [Personal communications to the author from Ian Lyle, Librarian to the Royal College of Surgeons, dated 9 June 1994; and from Geoffrey Davenport, Librarian to the Royal College of Physicians, dated 15 June 1994]. He is not listed in William, Munk Roll Of the Royal College of Physicians, 1878, volume 2 (1701–1800).Google Scholar After his father's death John Brickdale Morgan went into partnership with another surgeon, Edward Beck of 1 Walsingham Place, near the Asylum in Lambeth; see Pigot's London & Provincial New Commercial Directory For 1826–27, p. 870 (Surgeons).
52 Catholic Record Society Obituaries, volume 12 (1913), p. 138, where the following obituary notice from the Laity Directory for 1818 states: ‘1817 July 16 Mrs. Morgan, late of Lambeth Terrace, aged 60.’
53 Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/10–11.
54 Joseph John Knapp was descended from the Catholic Knapp family of Havant; see Oswald, G. Knapp, History of the Chief English Families Bearing the Name of Knapp (Printed privately, 1911), pp. 152–155.Google Scholar The Rev. Joseph Knapp (1747–1817) left money to John Joseph Knapp of Brompton Row; see Godfrey, Anstruther The Seminary Priests, volume 4, (1977), pp. 165–166.Google Scholar
55 Personal communication from Ian Lyle, dated 9 June 1994.
56 Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/12.
57 Public Record Office, Register of Wills, 1824; Probate 11 Index, will number 561, mf. 1691. Madame Caulier wrote: ‘On his demise he left her thirty pounds.’; Caulier, Reminiscences, T.787a/13.
58 Letter of George Alexander Thompson to T. C. Brooksbank, secretary to Lord Liverpool, dated 17 July 1816, gives ‘1 Lambeth Terrace’ as his address; see British Library Additional Manuscripts, 38263 f.85.
59 George, Robert Gleig, Memoirs Of The Life Of The Right Hon. Warren Hastings, Volume 3, (1841);Google Scholar Sydney, C. Grier, The Letters Of Warren Hastings To His Wife, (1905).Google Scholar Both works contain numerous references to George Nesbitt Thompson which it is unnecessary to reproduce here. He entered the Bengal army as a cadet in 1762 and rose to the rank of major by 1777 resigning his commission in February 1777; see Edward, Dodwell and James, S. Miles Alphabetical List of the Officers of the Indian Army From the Years 1760 … To September 30, 1837, (1838), pp. 254–255.Google Scholar In 1782 he became Hasting's secretary and went to live with him at his house at Alipoor a suburb of Calcutta. Thompson returned to England with his son George Alexander in 1789. The International Genealogical Index for London states, on p. 148 (643), that George Nesbitt Thompson married Catherine Mary Vansittart, the widow of George Vansittart, on 30 July 1791 at the church of St. Marylebone, London. His will, written in his own hand and dated 29 August 1807, did not recognise George Alexander Thompson as one of his two natural born children: the will is listed in the Public Record Office, Register of Wills (1808); Probate 11 Index, will number 847, mf. 1487. In October 1790 his daughter Elizabeth Thompson was born of a native woman called Sujar at Ramjibanpur, Bengal. In 1792 his second son, George Powney Thompson, was born, entering the Bengal civil service in 1815. In December 1798 his third son, also called George Thompson, was born to Charlotte Martin at Purnea, Bengal. Joseph, Foster, Alum Oxoniensis, 4 volumes, Oxford 1887–88,Google Scholar states that, ‘George Thompson, son of George Thompson of Calcutta, East India Army, Magdalen College, matriculated 27 March 1817, aged 18’. On moving to Bruges, George Alexander Thompson gave his date and place of birth as ‘1786, Calcutta’ which is recorded in the Population Register, Bruges City Archives, File A-4 (1829); a photocopy of this entry is in the Archive General, Stone. It follows that George Alexander Thompson was the son of George Nesbitt Thompson of Calcutta.
60 Personal communication dated 29 March 1994 from Sister Mary Coke, Provincial Archivist of the Society of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, London to Sister M. Valéry, O.P., St. Dominic's Convent, Stone, Staffordshire. Matilda Thompson entered this Society at Jette Saint Pierre, Brussels, on 30 March 1842 shortly before Margaret Hallahan left Bruges.
61 Alcedo is known from the Life (p. 15) as ‘the eldest boy’ whom Margaret Hallahan nursed through his last illness ‘and prepared (him) for his first Communion, which he made on his death-bed’. George was educated at Stonyhurst from July 1828 until May 1836 when he entered the Society of Jesus, [Personal communications from Father F. J. Turner, S.J., Archivist of Stonyhurst College, dated 6 April 1994, and from Father T. G. Holt, S.J. of the Department of Historiography and Archives, 114, Mount Street, London, to Sister M. Valery, O.P, St. Dominic's Convent, Stone], The details of the Thompson children's births are recorded in the baptismal registers of St. George's Southwark: Volume 1810–1823, entry numbers 1131; 1446; 1642; 2616; Volume 1821–1830, entry numbers 174, 175; 508; 2737 [Personal communication to the author dated 23 January 1995 from the Rev. Canon James P. Pannett KHS, Administrator at St. George's Cathedral, Southwark].
62 George Thompson's presence at the Audit Office, his correspondence with Warren Hastings and his unsuccessful attempts to improve his position in government service can be fairly traced in the British Library Additional Manuscripts 29, 181. f.340.; 29, 182. f.64.; 29, 183. f.2, f.33., covering the period from 1 December 1806 until 27 November 1807. Volume 5 of the Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies: containing an entire translation of the Spanish work of Don Antonio de Alcedo (Madrid 1786–89 5 vols. 4to.] With large additions etc. London 1812–15, 5 vols. 4to., contains a dedication to Vansittart. Writing of this translation in the Catholic Encyclopedia (Volume 1, p. 272), Bandelier remarked: ‘The work of Alcedo was translated into English by G. A. Thompson in 1812, and that translation is looked upon by many as an improvement, whereas it in fact teems with errors from which the original is relatively free.’ George, Thompson also published an Alphabetical Digest Of The Several Statutes Relating To The Examination And Audit Of The Public Accounts Of The Kingdom, etc, London (1822).Google Scholar
63 He published his New Theory Of The Two Hemispheres, 1815, 8vo. followed by his Self-Indicative Timetables, 1821. In the New Theory he argued that the native peoples of North America were isolated there sixty to seventy years after the Deluge when the hemispheres were separated; see The Pamphleteer, Volume 5, pp. 544–561.Google Scholar
64 Thompson, G. A., Narrative Of An Official Visit To Guatemala And Mexico, 1829, Preface, p. iv.Google Scholar
65 Thompson, G. A., Narrative, p. 440.Google Scholar
66 The Life says, pp. 15–16, Mrs. Thompson's husband was at this time absent in the West Indies, and during the two years that elapsed before his return, Margaret became her chief comfort and support.’.
67 Life, pp. 16–17. Copies of the relevant entries in the Winchester convent school register were kindly provided by Dom Philip Jebb, O.S.B., of Downside Abbey, in a personal communication to the author dated 21 June 1994.
68 The History Of The Margate Mission has been written by the Rev. T. Elphege Power O.S.B. but exists only in the form of a typed manuscript. See also The Story Of The Margate Mission in The Tablet for Saturday, August 4, 1894. [Personal communication to the author from Father John Seddon O.S.B., Archivist at St. Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate, Kent.]
69 Life, p. 15.
70 Life, p. 16; Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/12.
71 Anstruther, Seminary Priests, volume 4, p. 6.
72 Bernard, Ward, The Sequel To Catholic Emancipation, Volume 1, chapter 7, p. 101.Google Scholar
73 Life, p. 17.
74 Life, p. 16; Cavanagh, T.779/3.
75 Life, p. 18; Ullathorne, Interior Life, T.756/K33).
76 Life, p. 18.
77 Life, pp. 19, 20.
78 Personal communication of Sister M. Austin of The English Convent, Carmersstraat 85, Brugge, dated 12 October 1994, to Sister M. Valery, Stone. The entry in the convent school register shows that ‘Mathilda’ Thompson entered on 25 March 1828 and left on 25 October 1830.
79 Lori, van Biervliet, ‘Bruges Cultural Crossroads in Nineteenth Century Europe’, In Bruges and Europe, edited by Valentin, Vermeersch and published by Fonds, Mercator (1992), p. 338.Google Scholar
80 Life, pp. 22–23.
81 When registering as a resident with the Bruges municipality Mrs. Thompson appears to give ‘Barton’ as her surname. In fact her full married name, discoverable from her father's will, is ‘Clara Barton Thompson wife of George Alexander Thompson’.
82 For a full account of the political and economic background to Belgium in this period see: Kossmann, E. H., The Low Countries, 1780–1940, 1978, pp. 103–178.Google Scholar
83 Henry, Robert Addison, Handbook For Residents and Tourists in Belgium, (1838), pp. 1—40.Google Scholar Henry Addison (1804–1876) was a retired officer turned playwright and journalist who settled in Bruges from 1841–1848; see Lori, van Biervliet, De Engelse Kolonie In Brugge In De 19de Eeuw, in Biekorf, 88, (1988), pp. 150–282.Google Scholar An English translation of this article was privately provided in 1995 by Mr. Albert Van Eyken, formerly of Bruges.
84 This convent was founded as a filiation from St. Monica's, Louvain, in 1624 for English women unable to follow their vocation at home. The community fled to England in 1794 during the French Revolution, but returned to Bruges in 1802 as the property there was still in their possession and required a resident community to administer it. See: Drummond, C. R., Flemish Mystics & English Martyrs, 1925, ch. 5, pp. 237–257.Google Scholar
85 Henry, Robert Addison, Belgium As She Is, (1843), p. 157.Google Scholar Chapter 2 of this work is an abridged butimproved version of Chapters 4 and 5 of his earlier Handbook For Residents.
86 Population Register, File A-4 (1829).
87 Certificate Of Profession Of Margaret Hallahan As A Member Of The Third Order Of St. Dominic; made at Bruges in the hands of the Abbé Louis Capron, T.O.S.D.; 30 April 1835; AGS: T.795.
88 Duclos, p. 555.
89 Dudos, p. 499.
90 Life, pp. 22–23; Ullathorne, Interior Life, T.756/1 (20–22); and Memoranda, T.757/2.
91 Ullathorne, Interior Life, T.756/1(23), says she practised extreme forms of physical penance and when at Coventry she showed him a box of instruments of penance: ‘I found they consisted of a hair shirt, a discipline of knotted cords, an iron chain, an iron bracelet for the arm, a cross some three inches long covered in spikes, and two balls with spikes for the palms of the hands.’, T.756/1(23).
92 The personal papers of the Abbé Versavel have never been traced and the Life, p. 21, states: ‘the confessor who is understood to have preserved written memoirs of his intercourse with her, preceded her to the grave by only four months, and every effort to recover these precious papers has hitherto proved ineffectual.’ Bishop Ullathorne wrote, ‘for twenty years she had been under the guidance of a most strict as well as able director, that she had bound herself by vow to his direction, and that it was he who had held her from entering religion.’ Interior Life, T.756/1 (20).
93 Sister Imelda, Poole, Our Mother's Early Life, Spinal Complaint, Penances and Sickness, 1867–8, T.782 AE/164.Google Scholar
94 Louis Capron, 1798–1868; born at Nieuwport, Belgium; ordained at Ghent 1827; prevented by poor health from following his vocation as a Trappist; became a Dominican tertiary some time before 1829; matricularius of church of St. Jacques in Bruges 1828; held same position at church of St. Martin Ypres from 1852 till his death.
95 The history of the Holy Blood and the municipal honours paid to it is given in Duelos on pp. 457–459.
96 Register of Clothings, Professions & Deaths of this Fraternity, preserved at the Dominican Convent, 34, Vlamingdam, Bruges. In the bull Pretiosus of 26 May 1726, Pope Benedict XIII, expressly recognised all three categories of tertiaries—those who lived a monastic life with solemn vows, enclosure and the recitation of the Divine Office, or merely with simple vows; those who lived a common life with merely a vow of chastity; and those who lived a secular life in their own homes—as forming a true religious order under the legitimate authority of the Dominican Master General.
97 Ullathorne, Interior Life, T.756/1 (26); the visit to Bruges is referred to briefly on p. 21 of the Interior Life and more extensively on pp. 21–23 where he wrote: ‘Some twelve months after Mother Margaret came to me, I made a visit to Bruges, and was astonished to find the fame of sanctity which she had there left behind her … Stranger as I was in the quaint old city, I found myself the object of widespread attention so soon as it was known that Margaret resided with me.’
98 George, Alexander Thompson, L'avenir du chemin de fer et de la navigation par les bateau à vapeur de la Belgique, exposé dans une série d'articles…. Bruges, Chez van Hoorenbeke, De, Vlieghere, 1840.Google Scholar (In Chemin de Fer, 1833–40, no. 1). Listed in the National Union Catalogue, volume 591, p. 486.
99 Duelos, p. 506.
100 Jan, Devadder, The Life and Times of T. J. Ryken, 2 vols. 1985, 1987 (published privately); Volume 1, Chapter 10, p. 343.Google Scholar
101 Life, p. 43; Poole, Reminiscences, T.764/16. For the foundation of the Tertiary community in Bruges see the Letter Of Approbation of the Very Rev. Francis Ackerman, O.P., dated Ghent, 5 May 1841; AGS T.796.
102 Margaret, Hallahan, Letter, Stone, 3 January 1856 addressed to Rev. Dalgairns, J. D., C.Orat. Original: London Oratory archives.Google Scholar
103 Margaret Henry was born in Ireland in 1810 and came to Bruges in 1836 as the servant of an English family named Prichard. She lived at 58 Hoedemakersstraat until 1840 when she became servant to some English ladies at 11 Mariastraat. On 12 August 1841 she joined Margaret Hallahan in Ezelsstraat. See the Population Register of the Bruges City Archives: File E-6(1)/l830–46; photocopy, AGS.
104 Duelos, pp. 545–548.
105 This is referred to in the Life p. 42, and is based on her written confession which is found in Section 3 of Ullathorne, Interior Life T.756/1 (38–40).
106 Lori, Van Biervliet, De Engelse Kolonie in Brugge In De 19de Eeuw, Biekorf, 88, 1988 [Part 2, p. 6 of translation].Google Scholar
107 Letter to Mrs. Amherst, dated Bruges, 1842; AGS: T.1042. Hecht remarks that: ‘Relatively little of what domestic servants committed to paper has survived.’, [Jean Hecht, J., The Domestic Servant Classin Eighteenth Century England, Introduction, p xi].Google Scholar The letter [T.1042] survives only in a typescript version, and the original, which would have been the earliest autograph memorial, cannot be traced. This correspondence is dealt with on pp. 43–47 of the Life. The unnamed Jesuit Superior is Father Louis Gilliodts. The Jesuits re-established themselves in Bruges on 3 September 1840 when a small community of three members settled on Verwersdyk [Dyer's Dyke] behind St. Walburge's church, once the property of the Society; see Jan, Devadder, Rooted In History: The Life And Times of T. J. Ryken Founder Of The Xaverian Brothers, voume 1, The Vision, p. 407.Google Scholar
108 Letter of Mrs. Amherst to Dr. Walsh, Dated 22 January 1842; AGS: T.892. The genealogy of the Thompson-Amherst connection is as follows: the Mrs. Amherst who arranged for Margaret Hallahan to return to England was formerly known as Mary Louisa Fortescue Turville the daughter of Francis Fortescue Turville of Bosworth Hall, Co. Leicester and of Barbara Talbot, sister of Charles Talbot, fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury; Mary Louisa Fortescue Turville married William Kerril Amherst of Parndon, Co. Essex, in 1817. William Kerril Amherst's mother, Caroline Amherst (née Powney), was the sister of Catherine Vansittart (née Powney) who married George Nesbitt Thompson in July 1791. The Powney sisters were both Catholics their mother being Caroline Quentin de la Methée, their father was governor of Madras. William Kerril Amherst acted in 1818 as god-parent to George Alexander Thompson's son George. The Amherst, Powneys, Thompsons and Vansittarts were all Anglo-Indian families with East India Company connections. See Joseph, Gillow Bibliographical Dictionary, volume 1, p. 28 Google Scholar and Dame, Mary Francis Roskell O.S.B., Francis Kerril Amherst D.D. Lord Bishop of Northampton, (1903), pp. 3–6.Google Scholar
109 Letter of Father Ullathorne To Mrs. Amherst Dated Coventry Septuagésima Sunday, 1842; AGS: T.893.
110 Letter Of Mrs. Amherst to The Abbé Versavel Dated 1842; AGS: T.1043, where she quotes what Margaret Hallahan had written to her from Bruges in 1842 about Versavel's reaction to the arrangements. Ullathorne wrote: ‘She was most reluctant to leave Belgium for England, saying to Mr. Versavel that it was like going into Hell to return to this heretical country and it was only in obedience to her director that she did so.’; Memoranda of Our Beloved Mother by Our Venerated Father and Superior the Right Rev. Bishop Ullathorne Written during her last illness 1868; AGS: T.757/2.