Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:13:25.451Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Virgin Mary and Religious Conflict in Victorian Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

John Singleton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Virgin Mary was a powerful and evocative figure around whom the competing religious parties of Victorian Britain arrayed their forces. She was at the forefront of controversy whenever Scottish and English Protestants clashed with Irish Catholics, and whenever evangelicals attempted to purge the Church of England of ritualism. Roman Catholic leaders placed the cult of the Virgin at the centre of their campaign to evangelise Britain after 1840. This article analyses the development of Marian Catholicism in Victorian Britain, and considers Anglo-Catholic and Protestant responses to the growth of the Marian cult.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , January 1992 , pp. 16 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This paper is a condensed version of my BD dissertation, ‘The Virgin Mary and Victorian Sectarianism’, University of Edinburgh, 1989. I am grateful to Wendy Atkinson, to the referee who advised this JOURNAL, for valuable comments on earlier drafts and to participants at the 1989 Scottish Universities Ecclesiastical History Conference. Above all I would like to thank my supervisor Jay Brown for his interest, advice, and encouragement.

1 Turner, V. and Turner, E., Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: anthropological perspectives, Oxford 1978Google Scholar; Phayer, J. M., Sexual Liberation and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Europe, London 1977, 128–54Google Scholar; Chadwick, O., The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge 1975, 250–1Google Scholar.

2 Perry, N. and Echeverria, L., Under the Heel of Mary, New York 1988Google Scholar; Chadwick, , The Secularization of the European Mind, 122–4Google Scholar; Atkinson, C. W. (ed.), Immaculate and Powerful: the female in sacred image and social reality, London 1987Google Scholar. I am obliged to Charlotte Methuen for the latter reference.

3 Phayer, , Sexual Liberation, 139Google Scholar.

4 Anon, , The Catholic Church from Within, 2nd edn, London 1903, 99Google Scholar.

5 Evans, E. P., The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, London 1987, 74Google Scholar.

6 Cassidy, J. P., The Life of Father Faber: priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri, London 1946, 63Google Scholar.

7 Best, G. F. A., ‘Popular Protestantism in Victorian Britain’, in Robson, R. (ed.), Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain, London 1967, 115–42Google Scholar; Arnstein, W. L., Protestant versus Catholic in Mid-Victorian Britain, Columbia, Mo. 1982Google Scholar; Gallagher, T., Glasgow: the uneasy peace, Manchester 1987Google Scholar; Norman, E. R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England, London 1968Google Scholar; Aspinwall, B., ‘Popery in Scotland: image and reality’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society xxii (1986), 235–58Google Scholar.

8 Arnstein, , Protestant versus Catholic, 1–12Google Scholar.

9 ÓTuathaigh, M. A. G., ‘The Irish in nineteenth-century Britain: problems of integration’, in Swift, R. and Gilley, S. (eds), The Irish in the Victorian City, London 1985, 14Google Scholar.

10 Currie, R., Gilbert, B. and Horsely, L., Churches and Churchgoers: patterns of Church growth in the British Isles since 1700, Oxford 1977, 217Google Scholar.

11 Norman, E. R., The English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford 1984Google Scholar.

12 Larkin, E., ‘The devotional revolution in Ireland, 1850–75’, American Historical Review lxxvii (1972), 625–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Connolly, S. J., Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland, 1780–1845, Dublin 1982Google Scholar.

13 Norman, English Catholic Church, 110.

14 Charles, C., ‘The origins of the parish mission in England and the early Passionist Apostolate, 1840–1850’, this JOURNAL XV (1964), 60–75Google Scholar.

15 Schiefen, R. J., Nicholas Wiseman and the Transformation of English Catholicism, Sheperdstown 1984, 25Google Scholar, 39.

16 Norman, , English Catholic Church, 228Google Scholar; Leetham, C. R., Luigi Gentili: a sower for the second spring. London 1965, 237Google Scholar.

17 Newman, J. H., Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Oxford 1967, 138Google Scholar.

18 Idem.Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered, London 1876, 100.

19 Those churches possessing statues of the Virgin before the 1840s included Southwark Cathedral; Holy Trinity, Radford; Bishop Eton, Liverpool; St Mary's, Brewood; the Franciscan Convent, Taunton; and St Mary's, Fernyhalgh, Preston. See Gillett, H. M., ‘Our Lady's Well at Fernyhalgh’, Catholic Fireside, cxlii, 29 04 1955Google Scholar.

20 H. Davies, Worship and Theology in England, IV: From Newman to Martineau, London 1962, 30Google Scholar; Anson, P. F., Fashions in Church Furnishings, 1840–1940, New York 1966. 26–7Google Scholar, 38–43.

21 Gilley, S., ‘The Catholic faith of the Irish slums: London, 1840–70’, in Dyos, H. J. and Wolff, M. (eds), The Victorian City: images and realities, ii, London 1973, 840Google Scholar.

22 Ibid. 846.

23 Anson, , Fashions in Church Furnishings, 40Google Scholar.

24 Gilley, S., ‘Protestant London, No-Popery and the Irish poor, 11: 1850–1860’, Recusant History xi (1971–1972), 30Google Scholar.

25 Norman, , English Catholic Church, 142Google Scholar.

26 Aspinwall, B., ‘The formation of the Catholic community in the west of Scotland’, Innes Review xxxiii (1982), 47Google Scholar.

27 Edwards, O. D. and Storey, P. J., ‘The Irish press in Victorian Britain’, in Swift, and Gilley, , The Irish in the Victorian City, 166Google Scholar.

28 Mayhew, H., London Labour and the London Poor, i, New York 1968, 108Google Scholar.

29 Samuel, R., ‘The Roman Catholic Church and the Irish poor’, in Swift, and Gilley, , The Irish in the Victorian City, 286Google Scholar.

30 Sharp, J., ‘Juvenile holiness: Catholic revivalism among children in Victorian Britain’, this JOURNAL XXXV (1984), 228Google Scholar.

31 Cooney, J., Scotland and the Papacy: Pope John Paul IPs visit in perspective, Edinburgh 1982, 68Google Scholar.

32 Supple, J. P., ‘Ultramontanism in Yorkshire, 1850–1900’, Recusant History xvii (1984–1985), 277–8Google Scholar.

33 Arnstein, W. L., ‘Queen Victoria and religion’, in Malmgreen, G. (ed.), Religion in the Lives of English Women, 7760–1950, London 1986, 119Google Scholar; Cooney, , Scotland and the Papacy, 70Google Scholar.

34 Lancashire Record Office (hereinafter cited as LRO), Ecclesiastical Records, RCLni5/49, letter of Thomas Whiteside to his mother, 26 Jan. 1885.

35 LRO, RCLy7/13, Circle lists of the Confraternity of the Living Rosary, Lytham 1875.

36 Gilley, , ‘Catholic faith in the Irish slums’, 848–9Google Scholar.

37 Norman, , Anti-Catholicism, 187Google Scholar.

38 Purcell, E. S., The Life of Cardinal Manning: archbishop of Westminster, ii, London 1895, 791Google Scholar.

39 Chapman, R., Father Faber, London 1961, 301Google Scholar.

40 Hopkins, G., Poems and Prose, Harmondsworth 1953, 39Google Scholar.

41 Ullathorne, W. B., The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, 2nd edn, London 1904Google Scholar.

42 Plancy, J. Collinde, Legends of the Blessed Virgin 2nd edn, London 1859, 285Google Scholar.

43 Gilley, S, ‘Vulgar piety and the Brompton Oratory’, in Swift, and Gilley, , The Irish in the Victorian City, 255Google Scholar.

44 Primmer, J., Pastor Jacob Primmer in Rome, 4th ed, Dunfermline 1903, 75Google Scholar.

45 Gilley, , ‘Protestant London, 11’, 43Google Scholar.

46 Mayhew, , London Labour, 108Google Scholar.

47 Gilley, S., ‘The Garibaldi riots of 1862’, Historical Journal xvi (1973), 718Google Scholar.

48 Foster, J., Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution, London 1977Google Scholar; Kirk, N., The Growth of Working Class Reformism in Mid-Victorian England, London 1985Google Scholar.

49 Handley, J. E., The Irish in Modern Scotland, Cork 1947, 95Google Scholar; Kirk, , The Growth of Working Class Reformism, 313–19Google Scholar.

50 Handley, , The Irish in Modem Scotland, 100Google Scholar.

51 Joyce, P., Work, Society and Politics: the culture of the factory in later Victorian England, London 1980, 176Google Scholar.

52 Kirk, , The Growth of Working Class Reformism, 321Google Scholar, 329.

53 Arnstein, W. L., ‘The Murphy riots: a Victorian dilemma’, Victorian Studies xix (1975–1976), 51–7Google Scholar; Arnstein, , Protestant versus Catholic, 88–107Google Scholar.

54 Arnstein, , ‘Murphy riots’, 59Google Scholar.

55 LRO, CPR/5, Court of Quarter Sessions, Riot papers for Rochdale, 1868; Rochdale Observer, 31 Mar. 1868.

56 LRO, CPR/i, Riot papers for Ashton 1868, evidence of witnesses at the Manchester Spring Assizes, 11 Mar. 1869.

57 Eire, C. M. N., War Against the Idols: the reformation of worship from Erasmus to Calvin, Cambridge 1986, 153CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Montgomery, J., Popery as it Exists in Great Britain and Ireland, Its Doctrines, Practices, and Arguments: Exhibited from the Writings of its Advocates, and from its most Popular Books of Instruction and Devotion, Edinburgh 1854, 415Google Scholar.

59 Robinson, E. J., The Mother of Jesus Not the Papal Mary, London 1875, pp. vGoogle Scholar, vii, ix.

60 Scotland, J. B., Romanism and Ritualism Unmasked with Awful Disclosures, 3rd edn, Birmingham 1866, 214Google Scholar.

61 An elder of the Free Churc h of Scotland, A Scriptural and Historical Catechism Illustrative of the Iniquity, Imposture, and Tyranny of the Church of Rome with a Brief Exposition of the Heathenish Practices of that Church, Dumfries 1847, 17Google Scholar, 27.

62 The Bulwark, vi (1856–1857), 221–2Google Scholar.

63 Ibid., iii (1853–4), 326.

64 Ibid., iv (1854–5), 237.

65 Ibid., iv, 300.

66 Ibid., vii (1857–8), 72–3, 128–9.

67 Handley, J. E., ‘French influence on Scottish Catholic education in the nineteenth century’, Innes Review i (1950), 26–31Google Scholar.

68 McClelland, V. A., ‘The Protestant alliance and Roman Catholic schools, 1872–4’, Victorian Studies viii (1964–1965), 173–821Google Scholar.

69 ‘The English Poor Law and the Catholic poor’, Dublin Review xlviii (1860), 287Google Scholar.

70 Dublin Review xvi (1844), 550Google Scholar; Tyler, J. E., The Worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Church of Rome Proved to be Contrary to Holy Scripture and to the Faith and Practice of the Church of Christ through the First Five Centuries, 2nd edn, London 1851Google Scholar.

71 Dublin Review, xxxii (1852), 258Google Scholar.

72 The Bulwark, xiii (1863–1864), 238–40Google Scholar.

73 Dublin Review, n.s. ii (1864–1865), 419–32Google Scholar.

74 Barrow, L., Independent Spirits: spiritualism and English plebeians, 1850–1914, London 1986, 258Google Scholar.

75 Machin, G. I. T., ‘The last Victorian anti-ritualist campaign, 1895–1906’, Victorian Studies xxviii (1981–1982), 277–304Google Scholar.

76 Marshall, A. Calde r, The Enthusiast: an enquiry into the life and beliefs of the Rev Joseph Leycester Lyne, London 1962, 221Google Scholar.

77 Keble, J., The Christian Year and Other Poems, London 1976Google Scholar.

78 The ritualist Fr Orby Shipley arranged for the republication of this volume: Stafford, A., The Femall Glory: Or, the life, and death of our Blessed Lady, the Holy Virgin Mary, London 1869Google Scholar.

79 Newman, , Apologia, 35Google Scholar.

80 Dessain, C. S., ‘Cardinal Newman's teaching about the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in Stacpoole, A. (ed.), Mary's Place in Christian Dialogue, Slough 1982, 236–7Google Scholar.

81 Faber to J. B. Morris, 17 Jul. 1844: Chapman, , Fr Faber, 99Google Scholar.

82 Newman to Faber, Advent Sunday 1844: ibid. 101.

83 Wiseman to Acton, 16 Dec. 1842: Schiefen, , Wiseman, 122Google Scholar.

84 Anson, , Fashions in Church Furnishings, 63Google Scholar, 90, 207.

85 Ibid. 80.

86 Davies, , From Newman to Martineau, 128Google Scholar.

87 Robinson, , Mother of Jesus, 432Google Scholar.

88 Clarke, H. W., Romanism Without the Pope in the Church of England, Beckenham 1899, 71Google Scholar.

89 Reed, J. S., ‘Ritualism rampant in East London: Anglo-Catholicism and the urban poor’, Victorian Studies xxxi (1988), 375–404Google Scholar.

90 Keast, H., Our Lady in England, London 1984, 43–5Google Scholar.

91 Rowell, G., The Vision Glorious: themes and personalities of the Catholic revival in Anglicanism, Oxford 1983, 115Google Scholar.

92 Graef, H., Mary: a history of doctrine and devotion, London 1965, ii. 110Google Scholar. For Newman' s reply to Pusey, see Newman, , Certain Difficulties, 1–170Google Scholar.

93 On Fr Ignatius, see Bertouch, Baroness de, The Life of Father Ignatius OSB: the monk of Llanthony, London 1904Google Scholar; Attwater, D., Father Ignatius of Llanthony: a Victorian, London 1931Google Scholar; Marshall, Calder, The Enthusiast 1962Google Scholar.

94 Bertouch, de, Father Ignatius, 449Google Scholar.

95 Attwater, , Father Ignatius of Llanthony, 86Google Scholar.

96 Ibid. 93.

97 Bertouch, de, Father Ignatius, 564Google Scholar.

98 The Bulwark, v (1855–1885), 131Google Scholar.

99 Marshall, der, The Enthusiast, 162Google Scholar.

100 Calder Marshall, The Enthusiast, 162.

101 Rowell, , The Vision Glorious, 132Google Scholar.

102 Stephenson, A. M. G., The First Lambeth Conference, 1867, London 1967, 298Google Scholar.

103 Bentley, J., Ritualism and Politics in Victorian Britain, Oxford 1978, 54Google Scholar; Marsh, P. T., The Victorian Church in Decline: Archbishop Tail and the Church of England, 1868–1882, London 1969= 158–92Google Scholar.

104 Robinson, , Mother of Jesus, 414Google Scholar.

105 Clarke, , Romanism Without the Pope, 25Google Scholar.

106 Ibid. 155.

107 Walsh, w., The Secret History of the Oxford Movement, 4th edn, London 1898, 392Google Scholar.

108 Fallows, W. G., Mandell Creighton and the English Church, London 1964, 98Google Scholar.

109 Machin, , ‘The last anti-ritualist campaign’, 289Google Scholar.

110 Keast, , Our Lady in England, 47–50Google Scholar; Benson, R. H., ‘Report of the Royal Commission’, Dublin Review cxxix (1906), 253–66Google Scholar.

111 Wirgman, A. T., The Blessed Virgin and All the Company of Heaven, London 1905, 97Google Scholar. I am obliged to Revd David McHardy for this reference.

112 Barrow, Independent Spirits; Oppenheim, , The Other World: spiritualism and psychical research in England, 1850–1914, Cambridge 1985Google Scholar.