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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
“Christian socialism is,” according to Karl Marx, “but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart burnings of the aristocrat”. As always Marx had an element of truth. In the generation before the appointment of Henry Manning to the See of Westminster, British Catholic social concern, if not aristocratic, was undoubtedly paternalist in character. The faults are obvious but alternative strategies in the grim reality of mid-nineteenth century Britain are less apparent. In the prevailing social and economic condition of British Catholics, any immediately effective alternative strategy would be hard to imagine. On these foundations, Cardinal Manning was to build his much publicised social concern and within the Catholic community, these limited, paternalistic ideas of reform were to persist long after the social and economic condition of the laity had changed beyond recognition. In both phases, the paternalist and the socialist, the peculiar condition of the Scottish Catholic community produced imaginative lay responses: Robert Monteith and John Wheatley were indicative.
The traditional interpretation of British Catholic social concern has invariably stressed the role of Cardinal Manning. His social interest is contrasted with the more severe intellectual approach of Newman: immediate pastoral considerations defeated longer term interests. Though Manning’s original contribution might be challenged, he remains of great stature. Even in Derek Holmes More Roman than Rome: English Catholicism in the Nineteenth Century. (1978), the relative position of the two men, Manning and Newman, is well portrayed and central. But whichever personality attracts our sympathy and wins our support, they are both clerics.
1 Quoted from Communist Manifesto in frontispiece to Peter J. Frederick, Knights of the Golden Rule: The Intellectual as Christian Social Reformer in the 1890s, Lexington, Kentucky, USA 1976.
2 The standard accounts of Manning are E. S. Purcell, Life, 2 volumes, London 1895 and Shane Leslie, Henry Edward Manning: His Life and Labours, London, 1921. On Newman, Meriel Trevor, Light in Winter, and The Pillar of the Cloud, London 1962. V. A. McClelland, Cardinal Manning, His Public Life and Influence, 1865-1892. London, 1962.
3 W. G. Ward, The Ideal of a Christian Church, 1969 reprint edition, p. 391. There are numerous remarks in a similar vein throughout the book.
4 Montgomery wrote several tracts like The Oath of Abjuration ... London, 1859 and Rome and the Papacy Now and Forever Inseparable, London, 1860.
5 See E. S. Purcell, Life and Letters of Ambrose Phillips de Lisle, 2 volumes, London 1900, and Denis Gwynn, Lord Shrewsbury, Pugin and the Cotholic Revival. London, 1946. Mount St Bernard’s did provide considerable welfare to mobile workers. Between 1847 and 1850, the monastery provided 128, 269 meals and lodgings for 29,773 people. Tablet, 15 March 1851. In 1845, it provided shelter for 2,788 poor travellers and 18,888 meals. Tablet, 7 February 1846.
6 J. L. Altholz, The Liberal Catholic Movement in England: The Rambler and Its Contributors, 1848-1864, London 1962. The social concern is most marked in early volumes to about 1852-53.
7 See for example, James F. White, The Cambridge Movement: Ecclesiologists and the Gothic Revival, Cambridge 1962 and the lists in W. Gordon-Gorman, Converts to Rome During the XlXth Century, London 1884 edition.
8 T. Chisholm Anstey, On Some Supposed Constitutional Restraints Upon the Parliamentary Franchise, London 1867, p. 11. He also pointed out that no Catholic had been elected from a Scottish constituency since 1829.
9 Like Faber’s hymns;Edward Caswall, Lyra Catholica, London 1849.;Hemy Form by, The Catholic Christian’s Guide to the Right Use of Christian Psalmody and of the Psalter, London. n.d. ca. 1846; The Hidden Treasure, or the Value and Excellence of Holy Mass; with a practical and devout method of hearing it with profit, by St Leonard of Port Máurice, trans. by Robert Monteith, Edinburgh 1855. Jay P. Dolan Catholic Revivalism, Notre Dame, 1978 is very suggestive for Britain.
10 For example, Henry Form by’s The March of Intellect, London 1852, was originally delivered to the Catholic Literary and Scientific Institute.
11 E.g. J. F. S. Gordon, Address to St Margaret’s Defence Association in the Tablet 1 May 1852.
12 Alec R. Vidler, A Century of Social Catholicism, 1820-1920, London 1964 and J. B. Duroselle,. Les Debuts de Catholicisme Social en France, 1822-1870, Paris 1951.
13 The Early English Trade Unions: Documents from the Home Office Papers, ed. A. Aspinall, London 1949, pp. 141-150; and R. G. Kirby and A. E. Musson, The Voice of the People: John Doherty, 1798-1854, Manchester 1975. Also see Fr T. M. McDonnell, 1792-1869, in Gillow’s Biographical Dictionary.
14 Thomas W. Laqueur, Religion and Respectability: Sunday Schools and Working Class culture, 1780-1850, New Haven, 1976 and William Chambers, Memoir of Robert Chambers, Edinburgh 1872, esp. pp. 227-230.
15 Robert Monteith, 1812-1884, ed. Glasgow and Cambridge Universities, friend of Tennyson, R. Monckton-Milnes and David Urquhart. An extremely wealthy and generous benefactor of the Church in Scotland: Robert Campbell, 1814-68, ed. Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities; J.P. for Ayrshire, translated many hymns, convert m 1850. On J. F. S. Gordon, see Innes Review, v 16, 1965 pp. 18-26; W. B.D.Turnbull, 1811-63. D. N. B.
16 See Alexander Wilson, The Chartist Movement in Scotland, Manchester 1970; and P. A. M. Taylor, Expectations Westward: The Mormons and the Emigration of their British Converts in the Nineteenth Century, Edinburgh 1965, p. 30.
17 Thomas Ferguson, The Dawn of Scottish Social Welfare, London 1948, p. 191; Edwin Chadwick, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, (1842), ed. by M. W. Flinn, Edinburgh 1965.
18 E. Chadwick, Report, p. 397; A Report with an Account of the Speeches Delivered and of the Guild Premiums awarded for the cleanest and tidiest kept houses Edinburgh, 21 Oct 1842, Edinburgh 1843; Report of the Second Festival of the Holy Guild of St Joseph’s friendly Society, Edinburgh 1845.
19 A Discourse delivered at the Opening of St Giles Catholic Church of Cheadle, 1 September, 1846, London 1846.
20 Henry Formby, “Catholic Literature for the Poor”, Aug. 1853. Rambler v 12, pp. 83-90; Rambler, v 3,1848, p. iv.
21 Edward Caswall, The Child’s Manual: Forty Meditations on the Chief Truths of Religion as Contained in the Church Catechism, London, 1846, p. vi.
22 E.g. H. Formby, Pictorial Bible and church History Stories, 3 vols, London 1863.
23 See T. I. M. Forster, Recuell de Ma Vie, Mes Ouvrages et Mes Pensees, Bruxelles, 1837 and The Piper’s Wallet, Bruges, 1846.
24 See Campbell’s hymns in the St Andrew’s Hymnal; Henry Caswall, Scotland and the Scottish Church, Oxford 1853. Monteith’s hymn was first published in the Rambler, 1850, p. 237;Tablet, 10 May 1851.
25 Cuthbert Butler, The Life and Times of Bishop Ulathorne, 1806-1889,2 vols London, 1926, v 1 chapter 4.
26 Dublin Review, v 4, 1838 pp 67-96; v 6, 1839 pp. 499-566; v 9, pp. 187-214; Rambler, v 3,1848 pp. 30-33.
27 M. Kiddle, Caroline Chisholm. Melbourne, 1950; Tablet, 10 May 1851.
28 Henry Formby, The Cause of Poor Catholic Emigrants pleaded before the Catholic Congress of Malines, 5 September 1867, London 1867. See James P. Shannon, Catholic Colonisation on the Western Frontier, New Haven, 1957.
29 See T. I. Forster, Reeueil de Ma Vie, Mes Ouvrages et Mes Pensees, Bruxelles, 1837. The Piper’s Wallet. Bruges, 1846 and England’s Liberty and Prosperity, Colchester, 1830.
30 See my article in the Clergy Review, July 1978 on Monteith; D. Urquhart, the Pillars of Hercules, 2 vols London, 1850 esp. chapter 8 in vol ii; E. S. Turner, Taking the Cure, London 1967, pp. 217-32.
31 See Mrs M. C. Bishop, Memoir of Mrs Urquhart, London, 1897. Urquhart’s son ‘Sligger’ was educated at Stonyhurst and became the first Catholic Fellow of Balliol.
32 On Anstey see D.N.B. His family had emigrated to Tasmania in 1823. He returned to study law, became a Catholic and finally settled in Britain. He later served in Hong Kong and India. Punch has numerous poems and cartoons lampooning him.
33 T. C. Anstey, Plea of the Unrepresented Commons for the Restitution of the Franchise: An Historical Enquiry, London, 1866. p. 10.
34 Ann Amelia Procter, Lyrics and Legends: a Book of Verses, London 1871, with an Introduction by Charles Dickens. Also Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1861, pp. 685-87 and 1862,pp. 14-17.
35 I refer to Ullathorne, Mrs Chisholm and Anstey. Monteith’s father had also business connections with Australia.
36 See Lord Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power, ed. by Gertrude Himmelfarb, New York, 1957 ed.
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