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The Maynooth question of 1845

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

E.R. Norman
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Extract

The protestants behave shockingly, and display a narrow-mindedness and want of sense on the subject of religion which is quite a disgrace to the nation.

Queen Victoria, in 1845

The Maynooth question, which occupied so much public attention in 1845—which Harriet Martineau remarked was ‘the great political controversy of the year, the subject on which society seemed to be going mad’—in fact comprised several issues of unequal significance. As a political question, it lurched the conservative party to the point of grave division; it was a dress-rehearsal for the corn law split in the following year. It was also an incident in the Irish policy of the great Peel ministry, a part of the general reconstitution of higher education in Ireland, and an attempt, together with the charitable bequests act and the creation of the Queen’s Colleges, to conciliate moderate catholic opinion and syphon off some quantity of O’Connell’s abundant support.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 60 , September 1967 , pp. 407 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1967

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References

1 A history of the thirty years’ peace (London, 1878), p. 247.

2 Speech of Samuel Blackburn at the Covent Garden meeting, 14 Apr. 1845, in Proceedings of the anti-Maynooth conference of 1845, ed. Thelwall, A.S. (London, 1845), p. xlvii.Google Scholar This work will hereinafter be cited as Proceedings.

3 Stephens, W.R.W., The life and letters of Walter Farquhar Hook (London, third ed., 1879), 2, p. 237.Google Scholar

4 Blackburn, John, The Maynooth grant: facts and observations relating to the popish college of St Patrick (London, 1845), p. 14.Google Scholar

5 Gladstone, W E., A chapter of autobiography (London, 1868), p. 28.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 30.

7 Purcell, E.S., Life of Cardinal Manning (London, 1895), 1 300.Google Scholar

8 Correspondence on church and religion of William Ewart Gladstone, ed. Lathbury, D.C. (London, 1910), 2, 67.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 68.

10 Hansard 3, lxxvii. 78.

11 Ibid., 83.

12 Stephens, , The Ufe and letters of W. F. Hook, 2. 237.Google Scholar

13 The endowment of Maynooth: a speech of the Rev. William Brock at a public meeting at Yarmouth, April 9, 1845 (Norwich, 1845), p. 4.

14 For comment on this extraordinary fact, see Machin, G.I.T, The Catholic question in English politics, 1820–1830 (Oxford, 1964), p. 8.Google Scholar

15 Hogan, JF, ‘ Maynooth in the British parliament ’ in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 1909, vol. B., p. 492.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 1910, vol. A., p. 58.

17 Healy, John, Maynooth College, its centenary history (Dublin, 1895), p. 406.Google Scholar

18 Nowlan, Kevin B., The politics of repeal: a study in the relations between Great Britain and Ireland, 1841–50 (London, 1965), p. 31.Google Scholar Many of the protestant opponents of the Maynooth bill in 1845 also urged the necessity of a prior commission to examine the teachings of the college and the allegations of disloyalty.

19 Ibid., p. 63.

20 The letters of the Most Reverend John MacHale, D.D. (Dublin, 1847), letter civ, to the clergy and faithful of Tuam, p. 580.

21 Healy, op. cit., pp. 408–10.

22 A few catholic laymen were, however, asked for their opinions. Anthony Blake, a catholic commissioner under the bequest act, was one. See McDowell, R.B., Public opinion and government policy in Ireland, 1801–46 (London, 1952), p. 219.Google Scholar

23 Hansard 3, Ixxix. 657.

24 Proceedings, p. vii.

25 Ibid.

26 ‘ The protestant feeling of the country was already at work before any public steps had been taken in the metropolis ’—Rev. A. S. Thelwall, in his introduction to the Proceedings of the anti-Maynooth conference, p. x.

27 Hansard 3, lxxviii. 1148.

28 Ibid., 1149.

29 Proceedings, p. xv.

30 Ibid., p. xvii.

31 Ibid., p. xviii.

32 Hansard 3, lxxix. 33.

33 Proceedings, p. xxviii.

34 The act, as passed, is printed in the appendix of Healy’s Maynooth College.

35 Proceedings, p. xxxi.

36 Proceedings, p. xlii. He declared also that the effect of the education given at Maynooth ’ was to make the priests popish to the backbone ’. Since the college was intended for the training of catholic clergy, this can hardly have been surprising.

38 Proceedings, p. xii.

39 Hansard 3, lxxix. 1365. Poor Brougham was taken to task for his further remark that there were bad things to be read in Calvin’s works as well as in those of Aquinas. Rev. John Gumming, of the Church of Scotland, in picking up Brougham’s observation at an Exeter Hall meeting on 4 June 1845, hotly contended for the difference between Calvin and Aquinas : ‘ the contrast between them is just the contrast between liberty and slavery, between truth and a lie, between love and bloodshed, between light and darkness, between heaven and hell ’ (Proceedings, p. clxi).

40 Hansard 3, lxxix. 94.

41 England towards Ireland (London, 1845), p. 312.

42 Also published anonymously, London, 1845, p. 12.

43 Congregational Magazine, April 1845.

44 ‘ The subject of endowing the Roman Catholic clergy was much discussed throughout the country at this time. … The proposal of an increased grant to Maynooth was regarded by many as a first step towards the object ’ (A history of the thirty years’ peace, London, 1878, p. 245).

45 Proceedings, p. xii.

46 Ibid., p. xiii.

47 Hansard 3, lxxix. 37.

48 Ibid., 1020.

49 Ibid., 1036.

50 Ibid, p. 559.

51 Journal des Débats, 14 Apr. 1845.

52 Correspondence on church and religion of W. E. Gladstone, ed. Lathbury, D.G. (London, 1910), 1. 67.Google Scholar

53 Letter to Hook, W.F., 16 Apr. 1845, in Stephens, , The life and letters of Walter Farquhar Hook, 2. 237.Google Scholar

54 Ashwell, A.R., Life of Samuel Wilberforce (London, 1880), 1. 265.Google Scholar

55 Correspondence of W. E. Gladstone, ed. Lathbury, D.G., 1. 72.Google Scholar ‘ You will perceive that much of what I have said here is not fit to be said in public,’ he cautioned Newman.

56 Purcell, , Life of Cardinal Manning, 1. 301 :Google Scholar letter to Manning, 26 Apr. 1845.

57 The state in its relations with the church (London, 1838), p. 73.

58 Hansard 3, lxxix. 838.

59 Ibid, 33.

60 Ibid, 1010.

61 Manning, B.L., The protestant dissenting deputies (Cambridge, 1952), p. 446.Google Scholar

62 Stowell, Hugh, The proposed endowment of Maynooth (London, 1845), p. 19.Google Scholar

63 Proceedings, p. 88.

64 Smith, G.E., Maynooth: a letter to Daniel O’Connell Esqr, M.P., (London, 1845), p. 5.Google Scholar

65 Led by Miall, Edward, editor of the Nonconformist (founded 1841),Google Scholar who also had strong Chartist sympathies, and helped to found the Complete Suffrage Union in 1841. He was later to take a leading part, both as a parliamentarian and as a propagandist, in the movement for the disestablishment of the Irish church (1869). In 1853, the Anti-State Church Association transformed itself into that most powerful of dissenting pressures, the Liberation Society.

66 Hansard 3, lxxix. 501 ff.

67 Proceedings, p. xxxiii.

68 The Record, 14 Apr. 1845.

69 Hansard 3, lxxix. 521.

70 Stephens, op. cit., ii. 236.

71 Lincoln County Archives, Kaye Papers, Β 5/1/23.

72 Proceedings, p. xlvii.

73 Ibid., p. xlviii.

74 The tetters of Queen Victoria, ed. Benson, and Esher, , first series (London, 1908), 2. 36.Google Scholar

75 Church principles and church measures (London, 1845), p. 61

76 Proceedings, p. xcv : comment by A. S. Thelwall

77 Ibid, p. Ixxiii.

78 Ibid, p. lxxv.

79 Hansard 3, lxxix. 1124.

80 Ibid, 820. See also Trevelyan, G.M., The life of John Bright (London, 1913), pp. 160–2.Google Scholar

82 Proceedings, p. lii.

83 See, for example, the speech of Stowell at the conference (Proceedings, p. 18).

84 Manning, , The protestant dissenting deputies, p. 445.Google Scholar

85 Proceedings, p. ci (footnote).

86 Ibid, pp. xcvii, 42.

87 Ibid, p. 2.

88 Ibid, p. 40.

89 Ibid, p. 41.

90 Ibid, p. 43.

91 Ibid, p. 48.

92 Ibid., p. 62.

93 Ibid, p. xcix.

94 Manning, op. cit., p. 446.

95 Proceedings, p. 127.

96 Ibid, pp. 138–9. His letter was written on the 26 April, before the conference had met. At a meeting to welcome the conference delegates, on the 1 May, Thomas Guthrie, a Free Church minister from Edinburgh, execrated Sir Robert Peel as ‘ the father of the disruption of the Church of Scotland ’ (Proceedings, p. 194).

97 Ibid, p. 141.

98 Hansard 3, lxxx. 521.

99 Proceedings, p. cii.

100 Ibid.

101 Blackburn, John, The three conferences held by the opponents of the Maynooth College endowment bill, in London and Dublin, during the months of May and June, 1845 (London, 1845), p. 19.Google Scholar

102 Ibid, p. 66.

103 Ibid, p. 64. At the Crosby Hall discussions, Rev J. M. Hinton went so far as to say that he would not necessarily vote for parliamentary candidates pledged to disestablishment, because such men might also be Chartists. This caused an uproar, and it is true that Chartist sympathy did run fairly high at Crosby Hall. But then it was far from absent, at a local level, from the supporters of the Exeter Hall party.

104 Proceedings, p. cxxix.

105 Ibid, p. cxxxviii.

106 Pureed, Life of Cardinal Manning, 1. 300.Google Scholar

107 Hansard 3, lxxx. 1166.

108 Ibid, lxxxi. 37.

109 Proceedings, p. 173.

110 Ibid, p. cxxvi.

111 Ibid, p. clxxxviii.