¹ For a full account of this episode see Holt, T. G. ‘The English Ex-Jesuits and the Restoration’, Archivum Historicurn Societatis Jesu, 42 (1973), pp. 288-311.Google Scholar

² Ibid,, p. 299.

³ APASJ, Strickland Letters, f. 184.

⁴ Ward, B. The Eve of Catholic Emancipation (1911–12) 3, pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid., p. 211.

⁶ The Times, 10 April 1829.

⁷ Ibid & Stonyhurst MS. A. II. 29, f. 46.

⁸ House of Lords’ Journal, 10 April 1829; The Times, 13 April 1829.

⁹ 10 Geo. IV, C. 7.

¹⁰ Stonor, R. J. Liverpool's Hidden Story (Wigan, 1957) pp. 26–35; Blundell, F. O. Old CatholicLancashire, 1 (1925) pp. 57–64;Google Scholar The Great Diurnal of Nicholas Blundell, 1702–28 (ed. F. Tyrer, Lanes. & Cheshire Record Soc, 3 vols., 1968–72) 1, p. 159;Google Scholar 3, p. 210 & passim See also Holt, T. G. The English Jesuits, 1650–1829: A Biographical Dictionary (C.R.S., 70, 1984):Google Scholar index sub ‘Liverpool’ for particulars of Jesuits who served there.

¹¹ APASJ, SM/2: Price to Marmaduke Stone, Provincial, 25 May 1804.

¹² Burke, T. Catholic History of Liverpool (Liverpool, 1910) p. 34.Google Scholar

¹³ APASJ, 6/4/3/5: Gillmoss Poor School Association Minute Book, 21 Jan. 1840.

¹⁴ Ibid., 5 Feb. 1840. From this point the Minute Book became that of the new Society of St. Francis Xavier.

¹⁵ Ryan, N. St. Francis Xavier's Church Centenary, 1848–1948 (Liverpool, 1948), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

¹⁶ The committee of the Society of St. Francis Xavier estimated the population of Liverpool in 1840 as 220,000, of whom 80,000 were thought to be Catholic. The five Catholic places of worship then existing, St. Mary's, St. Peter's, St. Anthony's, St. Nicholas's and St. Patrick's were estimated to hold an average of 2,000 people each. At four of the the churches there were three Masses every Sunday; one church had four Masses. It was calculated that this allowed only a maximum of 32,000 people to attend Mass. As was stated in the committee's Minute Book, ‘48,000 out of the 80,000 do not have the means, if they have the will, to attend Mass’. The figure of 80,000 Catholics in Liverpool is again quoted in a letter concerning church accommodation in The Tablet of 30 Sept. 1843. These figures do not tally with the estimate of 40,000 for Liverpool's Catholic population in 1834 in Bossy, J. The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850 (1975) p. 426,Google Scholar Table V. Yet even allowing for a much lower Catholic population, the church accommodation situation would still appear to have been critical. The problem was partly caused by the practice of exacting bench rents, forcing poorer people to crowd into specially designated areas of churches while rented seats elsewhere were left empty—an arrangement attacked by J. Reldas of Liverpool in The Tablet of 2 Sept. 1843.

¹⁷ Lythgoe was appointed Provincial on 14 Sept. 1841. During the winter of 1839–40 he was based in London.

¹⁸ On receiving the memorial from the secular clergy of Liverpool, Bishop Briggs sent a copy to Dr. Nicholas Wiseman, Rector of the Venerable English College in Rome and Roman agent for the Vicars-Apostolic, asking him to present the document to Propaganda as evidence of the feelings of the local clergy. (Archives of the English College: Scritture 73.3.3).

¹⁹ APASJ, 6/4/3/5, Minute Book, 13 May 1840.

²⁰ Brown had accepted the offer of the position of Vicar-Apostolic of the new Lancashire District just four days after the memorial of the Society of St. Francis Xavier had been sent to Propaganda. Owing to chronic ill-health and also through diffidence, he had been very reluctant to accept the Vicariate, expressing this to Rome in terms much stronger than the traditional nolo episcopari. (SCPF, SC Anglia, 9, ff. 802–3: Brown to Cardinal Fransoni, 7 June 1840; f. 825: Brown to Fransoni, 8 Aug. 1840).

²¹ APASJ, RW/7: John Bushell to George Jenkins, Procurator of the English Jesuit Province, 23 Sept. 1840.

²² APASJ, 6/4/2/5: abstract of letter of Brown to Bird, undated. For a printed extract of the substance of this letter see ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 3, pp. 21–22.

²³ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Bird to Brown, 3 Oct. 1840.

²⁴ APASJ, 6/4/3/5; Minute Book, 27 Sept. 1840.

²⁵ APASJ, RW/7: Clarke to Lythgoe, 5 Oct. 1840. As a relative of Dr. John Bede Polding, the Liverpool-born Vicar-Apostolic of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land (Australia and Tasmania), shortly to be appointed first Archbishop of Sydney, Thomas Polding may have resigned to avoid embarrassment to his family in a dispute with an English Vicar-Apostolic.

²⁶ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Brown to Bird, 6 Oct. 1840.

²⁷ Ibid. .: Bird to Brown, 9 Oct. 1840.

²⁸ Lancashire Record Office, Preston, RCLV: Brown to Monsignor Charles Acton, 3 Nov. 1840.

²⁹ Ibid

³⁰ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Bird to Clarke, 16 Oct. 1840.

³¹ Ibid

³² Ibid.

³³ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Youens to Clarke, 17 Oct. 1840. In his letter Youens appends the bishop's own letter to his Vicar-General, dated Manchester, 10 Oct. 1840, requesting Youens to inform Fr. Clarke about the matter.

³⁴ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Bird to Brown, 21 Oct. 1840.

³⁵ ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 3, ff. 26–7: Brown to Bird, 24 Oct. 1840.

³⁶ ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 3, f. 25: Bird to Brown, 28 Oct. 1840

³⁷ The Constitution Romanos Pontifices upheld the claims of the bishops by ruling that the missions conducted by the religious orders were to be treated in the same way as those under the direction of the secular clergy. Episcopal visitations were to be permitted to parish schools run by the regulars, whose missions could also be divided, when necessary, by a bishop. A secular priest could be appointed to the new mission so created—a significant change of policy in the context of the fast-growing parishes in the industrial cities of England and Wales. See Beck, G. A. (ed.) The EnglishCatholics, 1850–1950 (1950) p. 140.Google Scholar

³⁸ APASJ, RW/7: Bird to Glover, 26 Oct. 1840.

³⁹ Ibid.: Bird to Glover, 31 Oct. 1840.

⁴⁰ ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 3 f. 20: Youens to Brown, 5 Nov. 1840.

⁴¹ APASJ, 14/2/6, Province Transcripts, f. 104: Glover to Jenkins, 12 Nov. 1840.

⁴² SCPF, SC Anglia, 9, ff. 873–74. It is not clear how Fr. Bird arrived at a figure of 1380 Catholics living in the Salisbury Street area.

⁴³ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Bird to Clarke, 9 Dec. 1840.

⁴⁴ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Lythgoe to Glover, 1 Dec. 1840. The meeting took place on 17 Nov. 1840 as an entry in the bishop's diary for that date reads ‘Lythgoe called: nothing’. This is the only reference to Fr. Randal Lythgoe and the Liverpool affair in the diary, which covers the years 1840–50. The diary is in Lanes. R.O., RCLV, Acc. 3770.

⁴⁵ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Bird to Brown, 15 Dec. 1840.

⁴⁶ APASJ, 6/4/2/5: Brown to Bird, 22 Dec. 1840.

⁴⁷ Copies in Italian of the letters of Bird to Brown, 15 Dec 1840, and Brown to Bird, 22 Dec. 1840, are in APASJ, RW/7.

⁴⁸ First Annual Report of the Society of St. Francis Xavier, 24 January 1841 (copies in APASJ, RW /7 and ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 2). The latter copy was sent with a covering note by Randal Lythgoe to the Jesuit General in Rome on 2 February 1841.

⁴⁹ APASJ, RW /7: Brown to Bird, 9 Feb. 1841. The reverse side of the letter bears a note outlining Fr. Bird's reply to the bishop.

⁵⁰ Ibid., recto.

⁵¹ ‘If you believe my consecration was irregular, I gladly resign from the office; indeed I never believed myself to be worthy of it. But I consented to receive it, however unworthy, in obedience to the commands I received.’ See Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R.A.B. (eds.), Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (O.U.P., 1969), pp. 334–35.Google Scholar

⁵² SCPF, SOCG 961, f. 125: Brown to Fransoni, 16 Feb. 1841.

⁵³ APASJ, RW/7: circular letter, 10 Feb. 1841.

⁵⁴ APASJ, 14/2/16, Province Transcripts, f. 105: Lythgoe to Glover, 17 April 1841. The Society of Jesus was then negotiating in London for the opening of the first Jesuit church in the capital. The outcome of the Liverpool affair was bound to have a profound effect elsewhere.

⁵⁵ APASJ, Epist. Gen., 1750–1853, f. 329, Glover to Lythgoe, 6 May 1841. The Italian translation of the First Annual Report of the Society of St. Francis Xavier, referred-to above, can be found in SCPF, SOCG 961, ff. 129–130.

⁵⁶ APASJ, 14/2/16, Province Transcripts, f. 106: Bird to Glover, 3 June 1841.

⁵⁷ APASJ, College of St. Ignatius, 1802, ff. 46–47: Bird to Glover, 21 June 1841.

⁵⁸ Wiseman had been consecrated bishop in 1840 after a period of twelve years as Rector of the Venerable English College, Rome.

⁵⁹ The Tablet, 26 June 1841. An account of the proceedings in Birmingham can also be found in Ward, B. The Sequel to Catholic Emancipation (1915) 2, pp. 13–15.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ APASJ, RW /7: Lythgoe to Glover, 29 July 1841.

⁶¹ Charles Januarius Acton (1803–1847) was the second son of Sir John Francis Acton, the sixth baronet, of Aldenham, Shropshire. The family had long been connected with Naples and the father of the future cardinal was prime minister of Naples for several years. In 1811, on the death of his father, Charles Acton left his birthplace in Naples and was sent to England for his education. After studying at Westminster School and Magdalene College, Cambridge — a highly unusual background for a Catholic of the period—Acton left England to begin training for the priesthood in Rome. Leo XII later appointed him one of his chamberlains and, in 1828, secretary to the Papal Nuncio in Pads. Next he was appointed governor of Bologna. On the accession of Gregory XVI, he was named Secretary of the Congregation Disciplina Regolare, the duties of which were to prevent and correct all violations or relaxations of discipline in religious communities. Acton was also Cardinal Protector of the Venerable English College, Rome from 1843 until his death in 1847; see D.N.B., 1, pp. 65–66 and Williams, M. E.. The Venerable English College, Rome: a History. 1579–1979 (1979) p. 234.Google Scholar

⁶² APASJ. RW /7: Glover to Lythgoe. 18 Sept. 1841.

⁶³ APASJ, RW /7: Acton to Glover, ? Sept. 1841 (date unclear).

⁶⁴ APASJ, RW /7: Lythgoe to Glover, 21 Oct. 1841.

⁶⁵ Brown was apparently completely unaware of the support and loyalty which Randal Lythgoe had pledged to him, apart from what had been said at the dinner in Birmingham. In September 1839 Fr. Glover had written to Lythgoe from Rome asking him his opinion of the Reverend George Brown of Lancaster, whose name was being mentioned in Roman clerical circles as a potential future bishop. Lythgoe had replied that as a bishop he would be ‘excellent’. Five months later, in response to a more detailed enquiry from Glover, Lythgoe had given a fuller and complimentary testimonial (APASJ, Foreign Correspondence, 1776–1859, ff. 364, 367). Having given such a good account of Brown's abilities, Lythgoe must have found the bishop's conduct towards the Society of Jesus in Liverpool trying in the extreme.

⁶⁶ SCPF, Acta 205, f. 82: Lythgoe to Glover, 26 Oct. 1841.

⁶⁷ Ibid. The church referred to was presumably St. Silas's, Pembroke Place, opened on 1 October 1841.

⁶⁸ APASJ, RW/7: Lythgoe to Glover, 26 Nov. 1841.

⁶⁹ APASJ, RW/7: Lythgoe to Glover, 24 Jan. 1842.

⁷⁰ As will shortly be shown, the report on the Liverpool affair, presented confidentially to Propaganda in September 1841 by the Pope's adviser on English Affairs, Monsignor Acton, strongly urged, interalia, the opening of a Jesuit college in Liverpool. Acton's report was not examined in detail by Propaganda until 28 February 1842. It is possible that in the period between September 1841 and February 1842, Acton's suggestion was divulged to the Jesuits’ opponents in Liverpool. This would seem to be the only explanation for their sudden, extraordinary suggestion.

⁷¹ SCPF, Acta 205, f. 82, Glover to Acton, 16 Feb. 1842 (a copy of the same document is in APASJ, RW/7).

⁷² Ibid. The ‘Protestant Institution’ alluded-to was again the Liverpool Collegiate Institution in Shaw Street.

⁷³ ARSJ, Anglia 1013, 11, 4, ff. 2–3: Roothaan to Fransoni, 23 Feb. 1842.

⁷⁴ SCPF, SOCG 961, f. 57–92. Acton had been nominated cardinal on 24 January 1842 (see D.N.B.) A printed copy of Acton's report can be found in ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 3.

⁷⁵ SCPF, Acta 205, ff. 37–59 and ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 6. The printed form of the report was published by Propaganda in April or May 1842.

⁷⁶ Though he did not mention the fact, a small Jesuit school opened in London in 1824 had been a failure because it had offered gratuitous education; see Holt, T. G. ‘Notes on a London Day-School’, London Recusant, 3 (1973), pp. 64–67.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ SCPF, Acta 205, f. 59. The population-figure was evidently based on the 1831 census return for England and Wales.

⁷⁸ SCPF, Acta 205, f. 60: Glover to Acton, 2 March 1842.

⁷⁹ ARSJ, Anglia 1013, II, 7; APASJ, RW/7; SCPF, Lettere e Decreti 1842, parte la, vol. 327, f.388.

⁸⁰ APASJ, RW/7: Brown to Lythgoe, 25 April 1842.

⁸¹ Ibid, Brown to Lythgoe, 14 May 1842.

⁸² ARSJ, Anglia 1003, IX, 1: Lythgoe to Roothaan, 18 Sept. 1842. The Rev. John Fisher and the Rev. Alexander Goss, first President and Vice-President respectively of the new school, later to become St. Edward's College, arrived at St. Doimingo House, Everton on 16 October 1842. The first student arrived there on 17 January 1843. (See Upholland College MSS., St. Edward's College Register. 1842–1900, f. 1).

⁸³ ARSJ, English Province Letterbook, 1830–1850, f. 180: Roothaan to Lythgoe, undated.

⁸⁴ APASJ, RW/6, Liverpool School Account.

⁸⁵ ‘Preparatory Day School’ did not denote a preparatory school in the modern sense, but rather a school preparing pupils for a future career.

⁸⁶ APASJ, College of St. Ignatius, 1802, ff. 55–56: R. Lythgoe to Glover, 8 Dec. 1842. The imminent opening of St. Edward's College was probably not the sole reason for the ‘pressing solicitations’ of the Jesuits’ friends in Liverpool. The defeat of the Liberal party by the Tories in the local election of November 1841 led to the introduction of a policy which made it impossible for any Catholic child to attend further the North and South Corporation schools. There, for six years, a bold experiment in interdenominational education had operated with great success. The Tories’ insistence on the removal of the Douai Version of the Bible from the Council schools and its replacement by the Authorized Version led, by December 1842, to the withdrawal of over 900 Catholic pupils from the schools. Fees at the new school opened by the Jesuits in Liverpool would have prevented all but a few of the Catholic boys formerly at the Council schools from attending. However, the establishment of any new school, fee-paying or otherwise, for the Catholics of Liverpool would have been warmly welcomed by the Catholic population. It is highly likely that Randal Lythgoe was urged to begin his school as a first step in the provision of Catholic schools for Catholic children after the Tories’ victory. For a full study of the crisis at the North and South Corporation schools see Murphy, J. The Religious Problem in English Education: The Crucial Experiment (Liverpool University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ APASJ, RW/7: R. Lythgoe to Glover, 13 Dec. 1842.

⁸⁸ APASJ, Epist. Gen., 1750–1853, f. 333, Glover to R. Lythgoe, 3 Jan. 1843. A copy of the Injunction of Propaganda addressed to Dr. Youens from Rome on 27 December 1842 is to be found in SCPF, Lettere e Decreti 1842, Parte 2a, vol. 328, f. 1036.

⁸⁹ SCPF, SC Anglia 10, f. 255: Youens to Cardinal Fransoni, 10 Jan. 1843.

⁹⁰ For a full account of the development of the parish and college of St. Francis Xavier see Ryan, N. St Francis Xavier's Church Centenary, 1848–1948 (Liverpool, 1948)Google Scholar and the present writer's ‘The contribution of the Society of Jesus to secondary education in Liverpool: the history of the development of St. Francis Xavier's College, c. 1840–1902’ (unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of Hull, 1984).