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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
With the consecration in Southwark Cathedral of James Brown as first Bishop of Shrewsbury, the restoration of the hierarchy in England and Wales was completed. Originally intending to leave several sees vacant for a time, Rome unexpectedly hurried him into office in the face of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, an attempt to prevent the new Roman Catholic bishops from assuming territorial titles. At 39, he was one of the youngest of the bishops. Brown came to his diocese from the world of education. In 1845 he had joined the staff of his old school at Sedgley Park, assuming the presidency of the college in 1848. These were years of reform: he supervised improvements to the buildings, reorganised the course of studies, and introduced an annual school retreat. Before returning to Sedgley Park, Brown had been on the staff at Oscott, staying on after his ordination to the priesthood there in 1837. He was thus a member of staff when the newly-consecrated Wiseman arrived to assume the presidency of Oscott in September 1840. One might surmise that, like others at Oscott, Brown was a little unsettled by Wiseman’s flamboyance and rather bemused by the stream of visitors the new president’s presence attracted. Brown was by this time prefect of studies, an office he accepted in 1839 and which he surrendered in 1844 to George Errington, Wiseman’s former vice-president in Rome, and who, at Wiseman’s request, had come to Oscott the previous year. Brown’s time as prefect of studies had witnessed the grant of a royal warrant allowing students from Oscott to enter for external examinations in the University of London.
The writer is grateful to Canon John P. Marmion, archivist of the Shrewsbury Diocese, for making available an invaluable collection of copies of Bishop Brown's correspondence which he has gathered together.
1 On 27th July 1851. For a more detailed sketch of Bishop Brown and his work in Shrewsbury see Phillips, Peter. ‘James Brown, First Bishop of Shrewsbury’, in Marmion, John P. (ed.), Shrewsbury—Millenium Essays, Downside, 2000, pp. 151–178.Google Scholar
2 Brown to Charles Newsham, 14th July 1851, Newsham Correspondence.
3 Table of Statistics presented in Rome, 29 Sept 1876.
4 The Tablet, 22nd Oct 1881, p. 674.
5 Brown to Woodlock, 9th Aug 1858, 30th Aug 1860, 9th Sept 1860; Brown to Fortune 21st March 1867, 24th April 1874; (on Brosnan) Brown to Bennet, 8th Oct 1866, Brown to Fortune, 25th Dec 1866, 28th Jan 1867, Archives, All Hallows College, Dublin. See, also, Abbott, Maurice, To Preserve their Memory: Shrewsbury Diocesan Priests (Deceased) 1850-1995, Shrewsbury, 1996.Google Scholar
6 Pastoral Letter, 10th Aug 1853.
7 Brown to Talbot, 1st March 1860, Talbot Papers.
8 Brown to Charles Newsham, [December 1851], Newsham Correspondence.
9 Brown to Charles Newsham, 1st March 1855, Newsham Correspondence.
10 Newsham to Brown, 2nd March 1855 (copy), Newsham Correspondence.
11 Refer to brief biographies in To Preserve their Memory, op. cit.
12 Milburn, p. 206.
13 Milburn, pp. 207 et seq. Brown to Newsham 1st July 1853; Newsham to Wiseman 4th July 1853. Newsham to J. Brown 2nd July 1853 (copy), Newsham to Brown, 5th July 1853 and Newsham’s reply (copy); Newsham to Wiseman, 4th July 1853.
14 Milburn, pp. 248–9.
15 Turner, Brown and Goss to Hogarth, 13th Feb 1863, Ushaw College Archives, UCH Series, 329.
16 Milburn, p. 206.
17 3rd October 1853, BAA B 2995.
18 Ibidem..
19 Brown to Ullathorne, 11th Aug 1859, 16 July 1860. BAA B 3882 and B 3962.
20 27th July 1860, BAA B 3966.
21 OCA Ullathorne Papers, 39.
22 2nd Dec 1865, BAA B 4369.
23 OCA Ullathorne Papers 26, 27.
24 The synods are presented in context in Sweeney, Morgan V., ‘Diocesan Organisation and Administration’, Beck, G.A. (ed.), The English Catholics, Oates, Burns, 1950, pp. 116–150, especially pp. 123–129Google Scholar. See also Hogan, D.C., ‘The Four Westminster Provincial Synods’, Clergy Review, 69 (1984), pp. 444–450.Google Scholar
25 Schiefen, pp. 243–244.
26 Morgan V. Sweeney, op. cit., pp. 128 et seq.
27 Wiseman had asked Rome to appoint as his coadjutor George Errington, who had worked closely with him in Rome and Oscott and, since 1851, was Bishop of Plymouth. Following Wiseman’s request, the Westminster Chapter voted unanimously for Errington at coadjutor at its meeting in Feb 1855. Bishop James Brown’s name was added to the terna together with that of Wiseman’s vicar general, Canon John Maguire, as a formality to complete the terna to be forwarded to Rome. This perhaps offers an indication of the esteem in which James Brown was held (Schiefen, p. 238). The differences between Wiseman and his suffragans is well explored in Butler, vol. 1, pp. 217–256.
28 Wiseman to William Burke, 26th Nov 1858, Ushaw College Archives, Wiseman Papers, 990.
29 Schiefen, pp. 282–293.
30 Brown to Talbot, 7th Dec 1859, Talbot Papers. This letter is cited in Schiefen, p. 296.
31 Cwiekowski, J., The English Bishops and The First Vatican Council, Louvain, 1971, pp. 39–41.Google Scholar
32 Brown to Talbot, Talbot Papers, 7th Dec 1859.
33 Brown to Talbot, 1st March 1860, Talbot Papers.
34 Wiseman to Talbot, 24th Sept 1860, Talbot Papers.
35 The Charities Act formed the theme of a Pastoral Letter from Brown and the latter added his signature to a letter from the bishops to Propaganda (see letter of Manning to Wiseman, 17th April 1862 cited in Butler, vol. 1, p. 239). For the details of this complex issue see Norman, Edward, The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford, 1985, pp. 188 et seq.; Butler, vol. 1, pp. 218 et seq.Google Scholar
36 ‘More Letters of Wiseman and Manning’, Dublin Review, Jan-March 1923, pp. 106–129.
37 Wiseman to Manning, March 1st 1862, cited in Shane Leslie, Henry Edward Manning Oates, Burns, 1921, p. 511.Google Scholar
38 Ullathorne to Mother Margaret Hallahan, 6th Feb 1862, cited in Butler, vol.1, pp. 233 et seq. Manning records that the Pope himself reported the remark to him during a private audience, Manning to Wiseman 7th Feb 1862, ‘More Letters’, p. 124.
39 Wiseman to Manning, 1st March 1862, Henry Edward Manning, op. cit., p. 511. The occupation of Fort Sumter in South Carolina by the American Confederates on 12th April 1861 signalled the outbreak of the American Civil War.
40 Wiseman to Manning, 10th March 1862, see ‘Unpublished Letters of Cardinal Wiseman to Dr Manning’, Dublin Review, Oct-Dec 1921, pp. 161–191.
41 Wiseman to Manning, Good Friday 1862, ‘More Letters’, pp. 127–8.
42 Letters of Archbishop Ullathorne, Burns, & Oates, , 1892, pp. 166 Google Scholar et seq.; for Wiseman’s letters to Manning, see ‘Unpublished Letters’, op. cit. Butler, vol.1, pp. 244 et seq., cites both series of letters but discreetly excises Ullathorne’s noting of the £12,000 cost of the temporary decorations of St. Peter’s.
43 Wiseman to Manning, 17th June 1862, ‘Unpublished Letters’, op. cit..
44 Brown to Grant, 18th March 1863, Southwark Archives.
45 Gross to Grant, 25th Feb 1863, Southwark Archives.
46 Turner to Grant, 23rd Feb 1863, Southwark Archives.
47 See, Schiefen, p. 315. Clifford was to be funded at the joint expense of the bishops of Salford, Shrewsbury, Liverpool and Southwark. It seems, however, that Brown was beginning to tire of the issue and balk at the expense: Turner, writing to Grant, 2nd March 1863, suggested that the others should pay Brown’s portion of the expenses since ‘his signature is of importance, and the expenses of Dr. Clifford going to Rome will not be less if Dr. Brown does not join us’ (See Schiefen, p. 376, note 65).
48 Oscott was, for a brief period from 1892–1909, utilised as a central seminary. See Hughes, Philip, in Beck, G. A. (ed.), The English Catholics 1850–1950. Oates, Burns, 1950, p. 36 Google Scholar; Champ, Judith, “The Crown of the Diocesan Structure”: Ullathorne, W. B. and the Foundation of the Seminary’, in Champ, , (ed.), Oscott College, 1838–1988, Oscott, 1988, pp. 102–103.Google Scholar
49 Williams, Michael, ‘Seminaries and Priestly Formation’, in McClelland, V.A. and Hodgetts, M. (eds.), From Without the Flaminian Gate, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1999, pp. 62–83.Google ScholarPubMed
50 Champ, op. cit., pp. 102–103; Mary Mclnally, ‘St. Bernard’s Seminary, Olton’ in Ibidem., pp. 107–126.
51 Brown to Ullathorne, 11th Aug 1859, BAA, B 3882.
52 Shrewsbury Diocesan Archives, Bishop Brown’s Diary, 23rd June 1855.
53 Pastoral Letter, 4th Feb 1869.
54 This was sold to the Mercy Sisters in 1881, where they still have a convent.
55 Brown to Escourt, 30th Nov 1875, BAA, B 5659. Escourt, passing the letter on to Ullathorne, heartily agreed, but saw no practical way of so doing (Escourt to Brown 5th Dec 1875, BAA B 5662).