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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
The Papal Brief restoring the English hierarchy was promulgated on September 29th 1850. On October 25th the Shrewsbury Chronicle reprinted without comment a straight summary taken from the French Catholic paper, L’Univers. Soon enough anti-Catholic feeling, fanned to fury by Cardinal Wiseman’s provocative and flamboyant Letter from the Flaminian Gate, was unleashed across the length and breadth of the nation. In the next few weeks the Chronicle reprinted a whole series of letters on the controversy, an open letter from the Bishop of London to his clergy, John Russell’s open letter to the Bishop of Durham, endorsing the bishop’s remark that this example of ‘papal aggression’ was both ‘insolent and insidious’. Replies were also published: Bishop Ullathorne’s letter to The Times and an article in The Spectator both insisting on the spiritual nature of the issue, rather than presenting it as a threat to the constitution of the English Church and nation. These seemed to go unnoticed. An advertisement appeared from the clergy of Shrewsbury signed amongst others by the Archdeacon of Salop, and Kennedy (of Shorter Latin Primer fame), then Headmaster of the Schools. A petition was to be left for signing in Mr. Lake’s, in Market Square, protesting about the ‘illegal usurpation of power, insulting to our most gracious sovereign… openly intimating a design eventually to subjugate England to papal control’. The local papers seemed happy enough to encourage the debate.
1 Shrewsbury Chronicle, November 8th 1850.
2 SDA, letter dated September 25th 1851.
3 Ibidem.
4 SDA, letter dated January 3rd 1852.
5 Ibidem.
6 Abbott, Maurice, Diocese of Shrewsbury Centenary Record, 1851–1951, 1951, p. 10.Google Scholar
7 Bishop James Brown, Pastoral Letter, November 25th 1851.
8 SDA, undated letter: ‘headquarters in Italia’ refers to Lord Shrewsbury.
9 Ibidem.
10 Ibidem.
11 Ibidem.
12 Ibidem.
13 Ibidem. See also, Harrison, Martin, Victorian Stained Glass, 1980, p. 20.Google Scholar
14 SDA, undated letter.
15 SDA, letter dated September 25th 1851.
16 Anon, Catholicism in Shrewsbury, Fides Publication, no date. Liverpool, p. 15.
17 SDA, letter dated January 3rd 1852.
18 SDA, undated letter, possibly January 1852.
19 Ibidem.
20 Nikolaus Pevsner, following Phoebe Stanton, suggests that the plans for the cathedral were discussed with A. W. Pugin (The Buildings of England: Shropshire, 1958, p. 264). This is misleading if it is thought that he had made any contribution to the design of the building as it stands.
21 Local Studies Department, Shropshire County Library, d 97/5322.
22 The Ecclesiologist, vol. 15, 1854, p. 166.
23 The Builder, 1853, p. 772.
24 SDA, letter dated December 1853.
25 Ibidem.
26 The Builder, 1853, p. 544. See also The Builder, November 8th 1853.
27 SDA, letter dated September 5th 1854. The Letter is from Bertram Talbot, who informs the bishop of his correspondence with Mgr. Talbot at the Vatican.
28 SDA, letter dated August 25th 1855.
29 SDA, letter dated October 30th 1854.
30 SDA, letter dated January 3rd 1852.
31 SDA, letter dated February 22nd 1856.
32 SDA, letter dated October 30th 1855.
33 SDA, letter dated November 29th 1854.
34 Ibidem.
35 SDA, letter dated October 30th 1854.
36 See King, Imelda, Sisters of Mercy of Great Britain, 1839–1978, 1978, p. 26.Google Scholar
37 SDA, letter dated January 6th 1856.
38 The Tablet, November 8th 1856.
39 The Builder, November 8th 1856.
40 The Tablet, November 8th 1856.
41 Although the cathedral does not have the traditional liturgical orientation to the east, throughout the description I retain the liturgical, rather than geographical, orientation.
42 Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Buildings of England, Shropshire, 1958, p. 264.Google Scholar
43 CA, various registers.
44 Convent Diary 1849–1881; 1814–1925; 1936–1945, Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, Shrewsbury.
45 CA, Minute Books of the Catholic Young Men’s Society, 1872–1922, 1936–1945.
46 Manley Hopkins, Gerard, ‘The Silver Jubilee’, Collected Poems, Oxford 1918.Google Scholar
47 Wellington Journal, an undated cutting preserved in the parish archives.
48 Ibidem.
49 Ibidem.
50 Norah Jenkins, ‘St. Mary’s Roman Catholic School 1877–1977’, unpublished article.
51 Ibidem.
52 Ibidem.
53 Ibidem.
54 Convent Diary, 1868.
55 Ibidem.
56 Minute Books.
57 CA, Catalogue of Parish Library, 1867.
58 Minute Books, 1878.
59 Minute Books, 1892.
60 Minute Books, 1902.
61 Shropshire Record Office, 2031/2.
62 I am most grateful to Peter Cormack, of the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, for sharing with me his researches into the stained glass of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
63 Harrison, Martin, Victorian Stained Glass, 1980, pp. 64–69.Google Scholar
64 A leaflet was published to commemorate the event.
65 Convent Diary, 1919.
66 Convent Diary, 1916.
67 Convent Diary, 1924.
68 The Shropshire Chronicle, June 1949.
