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The Making of Young Imperialists: Rev. Thomas Seddon, Lord Archibald Douglas and the Resettling of British Catholic Orphans in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

V. Alan McClelland
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Extract

Thomas Seddon was born in Liverpool a decade before the impact of the great immigration of Irish families, fleeing before the famine blights of 1845 to 1849, had begun to pose insuperable difficulties upon the small remnant of native-born Roman Catholics. In the 1841 census, the Irish were estimated at some 2.2% of the total population of England, Wales and Scotland; ten years later the census recorded the number as having almost doubled. Edward St. John described graphically the condition of the Irish poor, depicting them as being ‘crowded into the wretched slums of our cities’ where they tried to keep body and soul together ‘on the starvation wages of casual labourers, under conditions that are past description’. Workhouses ‘were crowded with orphans and deserted children, who were therein more like animals than human creatures’.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , October 1989 , pp. 509 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1988

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References

Notes

1 Denvir, J.: The Irish in Great Britain (London 1892), pp. 99 et seq.Google Scholar

2 Thomson, D.: England in the Nineteenth Century (London 1952), p. 123.Google Scholar

3 John, E. St.: Manning's Work for Children (London 1929), pp. 2 et seq.Google Scholar

4 Doyle, T.: A Brief Outline of the History of Old Hall (Market Weighton 1891), p. 30.Google Scholar Weathers was Vice-President for eight years before assuming the presidency and Prefect for three years.

5 Ibidem, pp. 49, 51. Seddon's self-effacing work has not received recognition. Bennett, in his chapter on the care of the poor in Beck, G. A.: The English Catholics 1850-1950 (London 1950), makes only passing reference to him (pp. 568, 573, 575).Google Scholar

6 The Tablet, October 15, 1898, p. 624.

7 McClelland, V. A.: Cardinal Manning: His Public Life and Influence, 1865-1892 (London 1962), pp. 32 et seq.Google Scholar

8 The Southwark diocese originally agreed that Manning should deal with London as a whole in his initial work of the ‘rescuing’ of poor children.

9 Elizabeth, Longford: A Pilgrimage of Passion: The Life of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (London 1979) pp. 286 et seq.Google Scholar

10 Lord Archibald Douglas was related to Edward Douglas, an Oxford convert of 1842, who soon became an influential Redemptorist priest at St. Alfonso's, Rome. In 1878, Archibald was considered by Rome for appointment to one of the new sees in the restored Roman Catholic hierarchy in Scotland but his cause was irreparably damaged by over-zealous advocacy from the eccentric third Marquess of Bute. (McClelland, V. A. ‘A Hierarchy for Scotland, 1868-1878’, The Catholic Historical Review, vol. LVI, No. 3, 1970, p. 496).Google Scholar

11 Coleridge, H. J.: Life of Lady Georgiana Fullerton (London 1888), pp. 353–355.Google Scholar

12 Quoted in The English Catholics, 1850-1950, op cit, p. 575.

13 Bans, E. and Thomas, A. C.: Catholic Child Emigration to Canada (1902),Google Scholar a private report of an investigation in Canada by Emmanuel Bans, first administrator of the Crusade of Rescue and Homes for Destitute Children which Cardinal Vaughan set up in London in 1899 to operate in tandem with the Westminster Diocesan Education Fund. This it continued to do until the appointment of Cardinal Hinsley to Westminster in 1935 when the two societies were brought together under one director. Arthur Chilton Thomas was a barrister and honorary manager of Father Berry's Homes in Liverpool.

14 The Tablet, 5 November 1887.

15 Bans and Thomas, op cit, p 4.

16 Macpherson's venture was still operating in 1902 when it finally gained Local Government Board official approval for the emigration of Poor Law children.

17 A Report to the Right Honourable the President of the Local Government Board by Andrew Doyle, Esquire, Local Government Inspector, as to the Emigration of Pauper Children to Canada, 8 February 1875. The President of the Board was the Rt. Hon George Sclater-Booth, MP.

18 Ibidem, p. 4.

19 Ibidem, p. 8.

20 Ibidem, p. 13.

21 Ibidem.

22 Westminster Archdiocesan Archives (WAA), Walter J. Sendall to Thomas Seddon, 31 October,1884. I am grateful to the archivist, Miss Elizabeth Poyser, MA, MLitt, for her help in tracking downmaterial relating to Father Seddon and the emigration of children. The Seddon material used here isfrom the WAA.

23 Seddon to Sendall, 13 November 1884.

24 Seddon's prescribed outfit for each boy-emigrant was: 2 suits of clothes, 2 pairs of boots, 1 pair of braces, 4 pairs of socks, 4 handkerchiefs, 4 shirts, 2 neckties, 1 hat, 1 cap, 1 overcoat, a box, 1 jersey, 6 collars (for use on board the vessel), 2 linen collars, 1 towel, 1 linen bag, 2 combs, 1 prayer book (total cost £4/12/1).

25 Seddon to Sendall, 13 November 1884.

26 Ibidem.

27 Langevin to Seddon 8 November 1884.

28 Seddon to Secretary, Local Government Board, 28 March 1887.

29 Seddon to R. Hedley, 26 October 1888.

30 Seddon to Sendall, 13 November 1884.

31 Seddon to Northcote, 7 April 1884.

32 Seddon to Mother Martha, 28 November 1884.

33 Seddon to Northcote, 13 November 1884.

34 Ibidem.

35 Seddon to Fremantle, 7 January 1884.

36 Lord Petre's residence in Essex.

37 Seddon to Fremantle, 12 December 1883.

38 Seddon to Fremantle, 7 January 1884.

39 Smith to Douglas, 25 May 1883.

40 Douglas to Smith, 29 June 1883.

41 Ibidem.

42 Smith to Seddon, 10 August 1883.

43 Kennedy to Seddon, 21 December 1883.

44 Douglas to Seddon, 29 March 1884.

45 Martha Spalding to Seddon, 26 July 1886.

46 Sister Martha to Seddon, 20 December 1886.

47 The Tablet, 15 October 1898.

48 Virginia, M. Crawford: Report of a Visit to Minada, Organised by the Catholic Guardians’ Association, July 1902 (London 1902), p. 19.Google Scholar In 1950, the Local Government Board authorised sevenmore societies for the emigration of poor-law children, thus fulfilling Seddon's recommendations on the necessity of formal approval for emigration agencies.