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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2021
The middle years of the nineteenth century are notable in the history of Catholicism in England for the development of the ‘papal aggression’ crisis. Catholic emancipation had been met with suspicion by Protestant groups and this suspicion grew into violent antipathy with the publication by Nicholas Wiseman of ‘Ex Porta Flaminia.’ At the same time that this crisis was emerging, Catholic charitable organizations were also attempting to garner support from the state for the building of Catholic schools. With a boom in the poor, urban population, fuelled by the arrival of Irish refugees, this assistance was urgently required. In the midst of this a small school in the heart of London became the focus of a cause célèbre. The belief that this school had been funded by lucre, defrauded from dying and vulnerable members of the Somers Town community by simonist priests, provided the source of a widespread conspiracy theory. The result of this conspiracy theory was a lawsuit, brought in 1851 by the relatives of a deceased benefactor of the school, against the newly enthroned Cardinal Wiseman. Metairie vs. Wiseman became one of the most celebrated and cited cases of the early Victorian era.
1 Robert Guy, The Synods in English (Stratford upon Avon: St Gregory’s Press, 1886), 268.
2 Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 29 July 1847, 3.
3 Michael Sanderson, Education, Economic Change and Society in England, 1780-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 13-14.
4 James Arthur, The Ebbing Tide: Policies and Principles of Catholic Education (Leominster: Gracewing, 1995), 12-15.
5 John Matthew Feheney, ‘Towards religious equality for Catholic pauper children, 1861–68,’ in British Journal of Educational Studies, vol. 31, no. 2 (1983): 141-153; Eric Tenbus, ‘Defending the Faith through Education: The Catholic Case for Parental and Civil Rights in Victorian Britain,’ in History of Education Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 3 (2008): 439.
6 Daily News, 22 April 1847, 3.
7 Eric Tenbus, English Catholics and the Education of the Poor, 1847–1902 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 60-62.
8 Jonathan Bush, Papists and Prejudice: Popular Anti-Catholicism and Anglo-Irish Conflict in the North East of England, 1845-1870 (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2013), 71-73, 82, 88.
9 The Times, 4 April 1845, 5.
10 Hansard, House of Commons Debate, vol. 91 (22 April 1847), cc. 1383.
11 Hansard, House of Commons Debate, vol. 91 (22 April 1847), cc. 1231.
12 Hansard, House of Commons Debate, vol. 91 (22 April 1847), cc. 1393.
13 The Standard, 27 May 1847, 3.
14 The Standard, 19 May 1847, 3.
15 The Standard, 3 May 1847, 2.
16 The Standard, 13 May 1847, 2.
17 The Lancaster Gazette, 1 May 1847, 2.
18 The Standard, 3 May 1847, 2.
19 The Lancaster Gazette, 1 May 1847, 2.
20 The Standard, 22 June 1853, 2.
21 The Morning Post, 8 November 1848, 2.
22 The Lancaster Gazette, 15 January 1848, 4.
23 The Exeter Flying Post, 17 June 1847, 3.
24 The Morning Post, 19 June 1851, 4.
25 The Exeter Flying Post, 24 January 1850, 3.
26 John Wolffe, The Protestant Crusade in Great Britain, 1829-1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
27 William Goode, Address delivered at a public meeting of the inhabitants of Allhallows the Great and Less (London: Hatchard, 1850), 6.
28 Hansard, House of Lords Debates, vol. 114 (4 February 1851), cc. 25.
29 The Berkshire Chronicle, 19 October 1850, 2.
30 Mortimer O’Sullivan and Robert J. McGhee, Romanism as it Rules in Ireland (London: Nisbet, 1840), vol. 2, 14-30.
31 D.G. Paz, Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 61.
32 J. B. Conacher, ‘The Politics of the “Papal Aggression” Crisis of 1850-51,’ CCHA Report, 26 (1959): 13-27.
33 George Sala, ‘Before and After or Asleep and Awake,’ British Museum, London 1868, no. 0808.9581 [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-9581 accessed 1 July 2021].
34 Hansard, House of Commons Debates, vol. 122 (8 June 1852), cc. 247.
35 Daily News, 22 April 1852, 4.
36 G.F.A. Best, ‘Popular Protestantism in Victorian Britain’ in Robert Robson, ed. Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain (London, 1967), 141.
37 The Morning Chronicle, 9 November 1850, 7.
38 Susan Griffin, Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 74.
39 Patrick Doyle and Sarah Roddy, ‘Money, Death, and Agency in Catholic Ireland, 1850–1921,’ Journal of Social History, vol. 54, no. 3 (Spring 2021): 1–20.
40 Charles Hastings Collette, Novelties of Romanism (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1864 [1842]), 96.
41 O’Sullivan and McGhee, Romanism as it Rules in Ireland, 330.
42 Doyle and Roddy, ‘Money, death, and agency in Catholic Ireland, 1850–1921,’ 1-20.
43 Griffin, Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth Century Fiction.
44 Catherine Sinclair, Beatrice (London: Bentley, 1852), 283.
45 Sinclair, Beatrice, 44.
46 Frances Trollope, Father Eustace: Volume 1 (London: Henry Colburn, 1847), 12-26.
47 Andrew Steinmetz, Jesuit in the Family (London: Smith and Elder, 1847); Rachel McCrindell, The Schoolgirl in France (London: Seeley, 1840).
48 McCrindell, The Schoolgirl in France, 176.
49 Ibid., vi.
50 John Venn, Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349-1897, 8 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), 2: 155.
51 The Morning Chronicle, no. 18,341 (26 June 1828), 3.
52 James Holdstock, Address to the Sensible and Liberal Inhabitants of Somers Town and Its Vicinity (London: Bradbury and Dent, 1828), 10-11.
53 John Athanasius Cooke, ‘Reasons for Subscribing to the Exclusive Teaching and Authority of the Catholic Church,’ in Catholic Institute of Great Britain, Tracts Published Under the Supervision of the Catholic Institute of Great Britain: Volume 1 (London, 1841), 1-16.
54 Reynold’s Newspaper, no. 32 (23 March 1851), 9.
55 Affidavit of John Athanasius Cooke, 1 March 1851, The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA), TS 11/420, 15.
56 Affidavit of Matthew Hamilton, 21 January 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 14; Daily News, 7 March 1851, 6.
57 Will of Mathurin Carré of no. 59 Chalton Street, Somers Town, Middlesex, TNA, PROB 11/2052/54.
58 Affidavit of François Carré, 19 February 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 15.
59 Affidavit of Matthew Hamilton, 21 January 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 9-11; Daily News, 7 March 1851, 6; The Times, 8 March 1851, 6.
60 Hampshire Telegraph, 8 March 1851, 3.
61 J.B. Conacher, ‘The Politics of the “Papal Aggression” Crisis 1850-1851,’ Canadian Catholic Historical Association Report (1959): 13-27.
62 Thomas Arthur Nash, The Life of Lord Westbury (London: Bentley, 1888), vol. 2, 40.
63 Nash, The Life of Lord Westbury, vol. 1, 103.
64 The Observer, 10 March 1851, 6.
65 Alphonse de Liguori, Opere del Beato Alfonso Maria de Liguori (Turin: Marietti, 1826), 220-221 [‘etsi licitum non est mentiri, seu simulare quod non est, licet tamen dissimulare… sive tegere veritatem verbis, aliisve signis ambiguis et indifferentibus, ob justam causam.’].
66 Samuel Hobson, Letters to a Waverer on the Romish Controversy (London: Seeleys, 1848), 397-398; C.H.C, Romanism in England (London: Arthur Hall, 1850), 149; The Protestant Electoral Union, The Confessional Unmasked: Showing the Depravity of the Roman Priesthood, the Iniquity of the Confessional and the Questions Put to Females in Confession (London, 1866), 13-14; ‘Ritualist,’ The Half-way House or, the Sign of the Jesuitical Hostelrie (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton and Kent, 1894), 93.
67 Paul Blakeney, Awful Disclosure of the Iniquitous Principles taught by the Church of Rome (London: Groombridge, 1848), 26.
68 John Cumming, Lectures on Romanism (Boston: John Jewett, 1854), 18.
69 Liverpool Mercury, 26 November 1850, 3.
70 The Observer, 10 March 1851, 6.
71 Daily News, 8 March 1851, 6.
72 The Observer, 2 February 1851, 6.
73 Affidavit of William Augier, 21 January 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 1-2; Affidavit of Raymond Gasquet, 6 March 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 1; The Standard, no. 8,294 (12 March 1851), 4.
74 Daily News, 8 March 1851, 6.
75 Affidavit of John Kettle, 3 March 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 1.
76 The Standard, 12 March 1851, 4.
77 Daily News, 11 March 1851, 7.
78 House of Commons, Report from the Select Committee on the Law of Mortmain (London: Houses of Parliament, 1852), 239-240.
79 The Observer, 16 February 1851, 5.
80 Affidavit of James Holdstock, 22 February 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 1-2; The Standard, 12 March 1851, 4; Daily News, 8 March 1851, 6.
81 Daily News, 11 March 1851, 7.
82 The Standard, 12 March 1851, 4.
83 The Morning Post, 13 March 1851, 6.
84 The Times, 14 March 1851, 3.
85 Terms of Compromise, 2 May 1851, TNA, TS 11/420, 1-2.
86 The Standard, 18 June 1851, 2.
87 The English Review, vol. 17 (April-June 1852), 99.
88 Daily News, 8 March 1851), 6.
89 The Tablet, vol. 12, no. 571 (22 March 1851), 185.
90 House of Commons, Report from the Select Committee on the Law of Mortmain (London: Houses of Parliament, 1852), 237.
91 The Rambler (London: Burns and Lambert, 1853), vol. 11, 28.
92 The Courier and Argus, 12 March 1851, 1.
93 The Leeds Intelligencer, 8 March 1851, 3.
94 The Examiner, 8 March 1851, 3.
95 The Times, 18 March 1851, 4.
96 The Observer, 6 April 1851, 5.
97 The Morning Chronicle, 15 May 1851, 6.
98 The Caledonian Mercury, 10 July 1851, 2.
99 House of Commons, Report from the Select Committee on the Law of Mortmain (London: Houses of Parliament, 1852), 535.
100 The Standard, 18 July 1851, 2.
101 Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 24 April 1858, 10.
102 Arthur, The Ebbing Tide, 16.
103 Ibid., 9-15.
104 Manchester Weekly Times, 6 August 1853, 5.
105 Essex County Standard, 9 February 1866, 2.
106 Bow Bells, 18 September 1867, 185; Church of England Temperance Chronicle, vol. 5, no. 53 (1 May 1877), 69.
107 Birmingham Daily Post, 10 December 1868, 6; The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, vol. 2, no. 10 (29 October 1883), 395.
108 The Hull Packet, 19 August 1870, 5.
109 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 23 June 1877, 5.
110 The Courier and Argus, 19 March 1880, 3.
111 The Isle of Man Weekly, 17 August 1895, 1.
112 Doyle and Roddy, ‘Money, death, and agency in Catholic Ireland, 1850–1921’, 1-20.