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Oscott in Oxford—Lost Opportunity or Misguided Pipe Dream?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
Abstract
The lifting of the ban on the attendance of Catholics at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in 1895, although intended primarily for laymen, was soon extended and led to the establishment of St. Edmund's House, Cambridge, for the secular (diocesan) clergy and the opening of houses of study at Oxford for the Jesuits (1896) and Benedictines (1897). Many bishops, however, remained ambivalent in their attitude to these developments, fearing that secular universities were a danger to the faith and morals of Catholics, and insisted that laymen should be obliged to attend extra lectures or conferences in which ‘Philosophy, History, and Religion shall be treated with such amplitude and solidity as to furnish effectual protection against false and erroneous teaching’.
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1 Evennett, H. O., ‘Catholics and the Universities, 1850–1950’, in George, Andrew Beck (editor), The English Catholics, 1850–1950 (London, 1950), pp. 291–321,Google Scholar and
Vincent, Alan McClelland, English Roman Catholics and Higher Education, 1830–1903 (Oxford, 1973).Google Scholar
2 Garrett Sweeney, St. Edmund's House, Cambridge: the First Eighty Years: A History (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar
3 Instruction to the Parents, Superiors, & Directors of Catholic Laymen who desire to study in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge by the Cardinal Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of Westminster, 1 August 1896, p. 2.Google Scholar This requirement was contained in the Letter from the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda to the Archbishop of Westminster, dated 17 April 1895, tolerating the attendance of Catholic laymen at the universities.
4 Quoted in Walter, Drumm, The Old Palace: The Catholic Chaplaincy at Oxford, (Dublin, 1991), p. 35.Google Scholar
5 Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives [hereafter, BAA], R1936, Letter from Walter Strappini, S.J., to Edward Ilsley, Bishop of Birmingham, 17 November 1890.
6 Ibidem, B11839, Letter from Charles Henry Kennard to Edward Ilsley, Bishop of Birmingham, 16 March 1897. He could not resist a swipe at Cambridge, where the attendance of undergraduates at Sunday Mass ‘has not been really so good as here’.
7 Ibidem, D319, Confidential Report to the Bishops of the Universities Catholic Education Board, 1 April 1901. The comment was made by the chaplain at Oxford; his Cambridge counterpart was able to state that ‘since 1896 no Catholic who has come up has fallen away in faith or morals, and at least two nominal Catholics have been brought back to the practice of their religion’. The report for 1903–1904, ibidem, D981, 11 May 1904, confirmed the previous analysis.
8 This was Thomas Leighton Williams, who read History and graduated in 1903, with a good second in both parts of the Tripos and a first in both the practice and theory of the Teachers’ Certificate. He was the third Master of St. Edmund's House, Cambridge, between 1909 and 1919, becoming Archbishop of Birmingham in 1929.
9 BAA, Ad Clerum Letter of Edward Ilsley, Bishop of Birmingham, 24 June 1908. Robertson's gift further stipulated that the house could be used ‘for such other purposes for the good of the Catholic cause as the trustees may determine’. When he compiled the Official Catholic Directory of the Province of Birmingham, 1914, Glancey stated somewhat tendentiously that Robertson had given Begbroke specifically.
to be used in connection with a House or Hall in Oxford belonging to the Diocese of Birmingham, or to some establishment thereof for the higher education of secular priests or students aspiring to be secular priests. And if at any time such House in Oxford shall cease to exist, or connection with it shall cease to be practicable, then St. Charles’, Begbroke, is to be used for the benefit of Oscott College.
10 Ibidem, P85/D, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 31 January 1910. His letters are peppered with anti-Jesuit sentiment. In another letter to Glancey, dated 16 April 1910, he described the Jesuits as
quite the wrong people in Oxford to begin with; their very name terrifies Protestants or makes them suspicious, and their methods may suit the Latin temperament … but it does not suit the English. Their whole system is too rigid and military for modern minds.
11 Ibidem, D2426, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 4 December 1911: ‘You will remember that when I first offered [Begbroke] to the Archbishop I did so asking if he intended to open a Hall in Oxford for his students; at that time he never seemed to think such a thing possible’.
12 Ibidem, P85/D, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 31 January 1910.
13 Ibidem, P85/D, Letters from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 23 February and 7 July 1910. In a letter of 14 December 1911, ibidem, D2433, he told Glancey that the time has fully arrived, it is overdue, for the better education of our priests in the Humanities; a man is better and broader and fuller when he has that in him: as it is our laymen are getting it in scores every year, and the clergy are left behind: it is all wrong.
14 Ibidem, P85/D, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 9 September 1910. The following year he promised £50 a year for three years if Glancey could persuade the Cathedral Chapter to take on the house in St. Aldate's and partly fill it with Oscott students as a house of studies; he also thought that ‘a young undergraduate … seeing happy and intelligent Divinity students about him’ might consider the secular priesthood, thus drawing young men ‘from the gentler families into the secular priesthood’, ibidem, D2273, Letter of Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 8 May 1911.
15 Ibidem, P85/D, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 12 September 1910.
16 Ibidem.
17 Ibidem, Chap/B/1, Minute Book of the Meetings and Acts of the Chapter, 1852–1914, p. 288, 4 October 1910. The following year, the Chapter opposed the Douai Benedictines opening a school at Malvern for the same reasons, suggesting instead that they should buy St. Wilfrid's; they refused.
18 Ibidem, P85/D, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 19 October 1910.
19 Ibidem, D2372, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 21 October 1911. Some months later, he wrote to Glancey that ‘my hopes of St. Charles being used in connection with Oscott and a Hall for Seculars in Oxford are blighted, and my expenditure there practically wasted’, ibidem, D2452, 7 January 1912. Yet he had also 1911. suggested the creation of a new diocese of Oxford and Dorchester, with St. Charles’ Institute, Begbroke, as a ‘Catholic Cuddesdon’, and thought that if Frederick William Keating, Bishop of Northampton, were translated to the new see of Cambridge, Glancey should be made Bishop of Northampton, with Begbroke as his home and seminary, ibidem, D2358 and D2380, Letters from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 6 and 27 October 1911.
20 Ibidem, D2407, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 14 November 1911.
21 Ibidem, D2452, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 7 January 1912.
22 Ibidem, D2566, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 12 April 1912, Robertson thought that ‘the secular clergy must not lag behind the Jesuits and others in education, nor behind the laity, that is a real danger’.
23 Tablet, vol. 119, pp. 564–565, 13 April 1912. In a further article, ‘A Notable Experiment’, unattributed, but possibly also by Williams, St. Edmund's House was described as ‘our nearest approach to a Central Catholic Institute … the beginning of a great national movement which aims both at the higher education of the secular clergy, and at the greater efficiency of our schools and seminaries’. Apart from ‘the advantages of possessing a learned and capable body of men’, university education, ‘understood by Catholics all over the world as a matter of life and death’, would mean that ‘our secondary schools will not suffer from incompetent teachers. Where on the other hand, the higher education of clergy and laity is neglected or dissociated from the life of universities, we may justly fear that our colleges may be slumbering in back-waters, regardless or even ignorant of the onward course of the stream’, ibidem, vol. 121, p. 922, 14 June 1913.
24 The average number of priest-students at the House between 1905 and 1910 was 10, but this included religious, and Williams wanted to raise the numbers to 16, in order to break even financially. Even so, by the end of his term of office in 1919, only the dioceses of Westminster, Birmingham, Liverpool, Salford and Southwark had sent any men up to the House. See Garrett Sweeney, op. cit., pp. 41–52.
25 BAA, D2581, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 5 May 1912.
26 Ibidem, D2628, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 24 June 1912. Gasquet's speech was reported in the Tablet, vol. 119, p. 976, 22 June 1912.
27 For Barry, see Sheridan, Gilley, ‘Father William Barry; Priest and Novelist’, in Recusant History, vol. 24 (1998–1999), pp. 523–551.Google Scholar
28 BAA, Chap/B/1, Minute Book of the Meetings and Acts of the Chapter, 1852–1914, p. 300, 5 November 1912. An earlier request of the Chapter that ‘practical measures should be taken as soon as possible’ with regard to the higher education of ecclesiastical students, ‘and that for this purpose advantage be taken of the facilities offered by the University of Birmingham’, although accepted by Ilsley, was still ‘under consideration’ by him a year later, ibidem, pp. 226–227 and 275, 2 March and 2 April 1907, 7 July 1908.
29 Ibidem, p. 301, 7 January 1913.
30 Ibidem, p. 301, 4 February 1913.
31 Ibidem, OCA/2/9/16/5/113, Letter from Edward Ilsley, Archbishop of Birmingham, to Henry Thomas Parkinson, 6 February 1913.
32 Ibidem, D2904, University Education (Interim) Report, 28 March 1913.
33 The Commission conveyed its thanks to Robertson for his gift of the house and grounds at Begbroke whereby the diocese ‘has been enabled to take the first steps towards a University training for the secular clergy of Birmingham’. It also recognised that ‘were Cambridge fixed upon, Begbroke would lose much of its utility’.
34 It was also thought desirable, ‘to hasten results … at once to send up to Oxford, for a year's residence and training, some of those who are destined to be teachers at St. Wilfrid's and Oscott, even though not presented for degrees’.
35 BAA, P85/D, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 29 March 1913.
36 Ibidem, OCA/2/12/3/21, Letter from Henry Fitz Alan-Howard, Duke of Norfolk, to Edward Ilsley, Archbishop of Birmingham, 24 May 1913. In an attached memorial, outlining the advantages of Cambridge over Oxford, the Duke quoted the warning of John Addington-Symonds regarding the ‘danger of the facile rhetoric and somewhat shallow philosophies of Oxford, and deems that she sends forth her sons journalists rather than scholars’.
37 Ibidem, D2950, University Education (Final) Report, 17 June 1913. Robertson's reaction to Norfolk's concerns was typically bullish:
If the Duke thinks one house sufficient for University Education for all England then why not recognize a mistake was made in going to Cambridge and cut one's loss and concentrate on Oxford? It is notorious which university has affected most the religious mind of England.
Ibidem, P85/D, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 9 June 1913.
38 Ibidem, P230/4, Letter from G. Wordsworth to E. J. Brooks & Son, Auctioneers, Surveyors and Valuers, 7 July 1913 (Copy).
39 Ibidem, Letter from Michael Francis Glancey to H. J. Bidder, Bursar of St. John's College, Oxford, 11 October 1913 (Copy).
40 Ibidem, Letter from H. J. Bidder to Michael Francis Glancey, 20 November 1913, and Memorandum of interview between Glancey and Bidder on 3 December 1913.
41 Ibidem, P230/1, Diary of St. Charles’ House, Oxford, 1913–1925, 19 October 1913.
42 Ibidem, Ad Clerum Letter of Edward Ilsley, Archbishop of Birmingham, 6 July 1913.
43 Ibidem, Chap/B/1, Minute Book of the Meetings and Acts of the Chapter, 1852–1914, p. 304, 5 August 1913.
44 Ibidem, D2982, Letter from Victor Januarius Schobel to Michael Francis Glancey, 21 August 1913. St. Edmund's College, Old Hall, Ware, in Hertfordshire was the Westminster Diocesan Seminary and progenitor of the Cambridge scheme. Schobel's comment is explained by Cardinal Bourne's action in removing his students from Oscott to Ware, thereby reversing his predecessor's policy of supporting the scheme by which Oscott became the Central Seminary of the dioceses of Westminster, Birmingham, Clifton, Newport, Portsmouth and Northampton.
45 William Bernard O'Dowd was born in Dudley on 30 January 1874. Ordained on 5 March 1898, he served in the parish of St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham, until 1908, when he was appointed parish priest of Kidderminster. Coming to Oxford in 1913 at the age of 39, he died there after a short illness on 11 September 1920. His obituary in the Oscotian, 3rd Series, Vol. 22, November 1920, p. 162 summarised his Oxford career.
As Principal of St. Charles’ House, his constant willingness to help, and his almost paternal interest, endeared him closely to all who had the privilege of being under his care. The relative calm of his life at Oxford afforded him the opportunity and time for his favourite patristic study. So we find him a frequent contributor to ecclesiastical reviews, and a welcomed lecturer at the several Catholic Societies within the University.
46 BAA P230/1, Diary of St. Charles’ House, Oxford, 14 October 1913.
47 Ibidem, Chap/B/1, Minute Book of the Meetings and Acts of the Chapter, 1852–1914, p. 305, 4 November 1913.
48 Tablet, vol. 123, p. 245, 14 February 1914.
49 Ibidem, pp. 303–304, 21 February 1914.
50 BAA, OCA/2/9/16/5/0/12, Letter from William Bernard O'Dowd to Henry Thomas Parkinson, 8 May 1914.
51 Ibidem, Letter from William Bernard O'Dowd to Henry Thomas Parkinson, 2 May 1916. O'Dowd argued that Oscott should be working towards a two-year preparation for students destined for Oxford.
52 BAA, E226, Letter from William Bernard O'Dowd to Michael Francis Glancey, 30 January 1917.
53 Ibidem, E227, Letter from William Bernard O'Dowd to Michael Francis Glancey, 9 February 1917.
54 Ibidem, E228, Letter from William Bernard O'Dowd to Michael Francis Glancey, 11 February 1917.
55 Ibidem, OCA/2/9/16/5/W/5, Letter from Henry Thomas Parkinson to Henry Walsh, 7 August 1919 (Copy).
56 Ibidem, OCA/2/9/16/5/0/12, Letter from William Bernard O'Dowd to Henry Thomas Parkinson, undated [September 1919]. He told Francis de Capitain, the Diocesan Treasurer, that ‘I'm having a bout with Park[in]s[on]. He has robbed me of a student during the Vac. That I believe is the second scalp he has had during the last 2 months’, Ibidem, P85/5, Letter from William Bernard O'Dowd to Francis de Capitain, 17 September 1919.
57 Ibidem, P230/1, Diary of St. Charles’ House, Oxford, October 1919.
58 Ibidem, October 1915.
59 Ibidem, Chap/B/3, Minute Book of the Meetings of the Cathedral Chapter, 1915–1959, p. 46, 1 October 1918.
60 Ibidem, pp. 53–54, 3 December 1918.
61 Ibidem, P230/1, Diary of St. Charles’ House, 28 September 1921.
62 Ibidem, OCA/2/9/16/5/1/3, Letters from Edward Ilsley, Archbishop of Birmingham, to Henry Thomas Parkinson, 3 October 1917 and 21 July 1920.
63 Ibidem, E325, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 8 May 1922: ‘I expect your ideal is the same as it was some years ago—Oscott, Oxford, Rome for secular students, and if Rome is not possible or desirable for all at any rate the first two should be’.
64 Ibidem, Ad Clerum Letter of John Mclntyre, Archbishop of Birmingham, 4 October 1921.
65 Ibidem, DP/E/5, Minute Book of the Ecclesiastical Education Board, 17 November 1921. Williams wrote to Glancey about Parkinson ‘vehemently denouncing the sending of students to Oxford until they are ordained priest’, but he added that ‘I'm still unconverted’, and he commended the scheme in place at St. Edmund's College, Ware, where men were chosen for higher studies at the beginning of their philosophy course: ‘Not until we get some system of this sort, shall we succeed in getting good degrees at Oxford, or in getting value for the money spent on keeping men at Oxford’, ibidem, E312 and E313, Letters from Thomas Leighton Williams to Michael Francis Glancey, 20 and 28 November 1921.
66 Ibidem, DP/E/5, Minute Book of the Ecclesiastical Education Board, 18 May 1922. On the further question of where the Oxford students should study theology after their graduation, ‘Mgr. Parkinson gave his experience of Oxford students at Oscott, & it was decided to leave the question open’.
67 Ibidem, P230/1, Diary of St. Charles’ House, Oxford, 3 May 1922.
68 Ibidem, 8 December 1920. The man left shortly after.
69 Ibidem, 12 March 1925. Of the two remaining students, Francis Davis continued his studies at Fribourg and Joseph Connelly at St. Benet's Hall.
70 Ibidem, DP/E/5, Minute Book of the Ecclesiastical Education Board, 13 July 1927. Although Morgan did not advocate the closing down of St. Charles’ altogether, he did think that if it were used again, it should be attached to one of the colleges.
71 Ibidem, P230/1. Diary of St. Charles’ House, Oxford, June 1915. Robertson later complained to Glancey that O'Dowd did not care for the place ‘a bit; he may, but he used it as little as he could’, ibidem, E274, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 18 December 1918.
72 This phrase was repeatedly and increasingly used by Robertson in his letters to Glancey, Ilsley and McIntyre.
73 Ibidem, B212, Letter from Charles Robertson to Edward Ilsley, Archbishop of Birmingham, 24 November 1918.
74 Ibidem, E279, Letter from Henry Hinde to Edward Ilsley, Archbishop of Birmingham, 22 March 1919.
75 Ibidem, E270, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 16 November 1918.
76 Ibidem, E275, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 21 December 1918.
77 Ibidem, E274 and E275, Letters from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 18 and 21 December 191.
78 Ibidem, EP/A/2, Acta of the Annual Meeting of the Bishops, 29 April 1919.
79 Ibidem, E285 Letter from Henry Hinde to Edward Ilsley, Archbishop of Birmingham, 8 September 1919. The following year a scheme was mooted of uniting Begbroke, the Beda College, Rome, and the Converts’ Aid Society in one organisation, with Begbroke becoming the school of philosophy and the Beda the school of theology: ‘This scheme will splendidly eliminate the undesirables, and will render impossible a similar happening, as when a certain Beda man had arrived at the Diaconate, it was found he did not believe in Transubstantiation’, Archives of the Archbishop of Westminster [hereafter, AAW], Bo 5/43a, Letter from Henry Barton Brown to Cardinal Francis Bourne, 2 November 1920.
80 Ibidem, E291, Printed Advertising Brochure for Begbroke Place, Oxford, n.d. [January 1920].
81 Ibidem, E293 and E294, Circular Letter and List from Henry Barton Brown to the Bishops of. England and Wales, 23 January 1920.
82 Ibidem, E298, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 14 December 1920.
83 Tablet, vol. 139, p. 489, 15 April 1922, reported that since Begbroke Place was started some thirty-four convert ministers had been received for different periods, of whom nineteen had gone on to the priesthood.
84 Ibidem, E295, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 7 October 1920. AAW, Bo 5/43a, Letter from Henry Hinde to Cardinal Francis Bourne, 1 April 1921, stated that only £240 had been raised by public subscription.
85 BAA, E302, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 13 June 1921.
86 Ibidem, E289 and E296, Letters from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 22 December 1919 and 11 October 1920.
87 Ibidem, E301, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 5 May 1921. In a letter to Glancey of 2 October 1921, E307, his final judgement was I think we ought to close and leave the question of the convert clergy entirely to the Bishops: we have had our experiment and failed. The Bishop of Southwark has intimated he does not want any more convert priests in his diocese, and I am told the Bishop of Clifton is stocking his with young Irish priests, so let us forget all about the Oxford movement.
88 The property, called Anathoth, had been bought by Fr. Kenelm Vaughan, brother of the Cardinal, in 1898, who founded the Brotherhood of Divine Expiation, an ascetic religious order that did not survive Vaughan's death in 1909. The house was used by the Catholic Missionary Society between 1910 and 1922, when Mgr. Barton Brown took up residence and renamed it ‘St. Charles House’. The work with convert clergyman lasted there for three years.
89 Ibidem, E312, Letter from Thomas Leighton Williams to Michael Francis Glancey, 20 November 1921, and Chap/B/3, Minute Book of the Meetings of the Cathedral Chapter, 1915–1959, p. 100, 3 January 1922.
90 Ibidem, P85/C, Advertising Brochure.
91 Ibidem, AP/C/28/54, Correspondence between Thomas Leighton Williams, Archbishop of Birmingham, and Charles Robertson, 1930–1940.
92 Ibidem, E296, Letter from Charles Robertson to Michael Francis Glancey, 11 October 1920.
93 Thomas Williams in the Catholic Times, 27 September 1912.