Some Letters from Suffolk, 1763–80 Selection and Commentary

Extract

The letters from which the extracts that follow have been selected were all, with one exception, addressed to Edward Galloway, a Jesuit priest who was stationed in Norwich from c. 1759-74 and who was the superior of his Jesuit colleagues working as missionaries in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Essex. They form a collection known simply as ‘Galloway Letters’ in the Archives of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (AEPSJ). The letters contain much in the way of trivial matter submitted to Galloway for his information, approval or advice, and most of this has been omitted in making this selection, the primary object being to choose such letters and passages as concern those places in Suffolk at which Jesuit priests were stationed or which they used as bases at the time—Bury St Edmund’s, Coldham Hall, near Bury and Gifford’s Hall, near Stoke-by-Nayland, and also places they visited to minister to the scattered Catholics. The method adopted in presenting this selection is to give first the number of the letter in the collection preserved in the Jesuit Provincial Archives, then the passage chosen (retaining the original spelling but with some punctuation added), then editorial comment.