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The Life and Death of a Victorian Seminary: The English College, Bruges1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Extract

The foundation and fortunes of the English College at Bruges, and its contribution to Catholicism in this country, remains one of the least chronicled chapters in the development of seminary education in the nineteenth century. For fifteen years, from 1858 to 1873, the college, founded by Sir John Sutton (1820–1873), trained more than 120 priests for the Church in England, Wales and Scotland.

Type
Other
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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Footnotes

1

This article is an expanded version of a paper first given at the Conference on Post-Reformation Catholic History held in St. Anne’s College, Oxford, in July 1986.

References

Notes

2 For details of Sutton’s life see the obituary notices in Illustrated London News, 28 June 1873, p. 619; The Tablet, 14 June 1873, p. 767, 28 June 1873, p. 828–9. See also Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses 2, vol. 6 (1954) p. 87.Google Scholar

3 Southwark Archdiocesan Archives (SDA), Boone to Grant, 17 February 1858.

4 AAW W3/17/103 Boone to Wiseman, 27 February 1858.

5 For an overview see Doyle, P., ‘The Education and Training of Roman Catholic Priests in Nineteenth-Century England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35, 2 (1984) pp. 2019.Google Scholar

6 Doyle art. cit. p. 210.

7 See Holmes, J. D., ‘English Ultramontanism and Clerical Education’, Clergy Review 62, 7 (1977) pp. 26678.Google Scholar

8 Venerable English College, Talbot Papers, Wiseman to Talbot, 12 April 1858 quoted by Schiefen, R. J., Nicholas Wiseman and the Transformation of English Catholicism (Shepherdtown, 1984) p. 372, n. 19.Google Scholar

9 The college was eventually dedicated to The Immaculate Conception, though Grant favoured St. John: SDA Seminaries Book, Grant to Wiseman, 4 February 1859.

10 Venerable English College, Talbot Papers, Wiseman to Talbot, 12 April 1858.

11 SDA Foreign Seminaries, Wiseman to Grant n.d. [1858]

12 AAW W3/6/82 Wiseman to Russell, 10 November 1858.

13 AAW Roman Letters 1/297, Cardinal Franchi to Manning, 22 June 1875.

14 AAW W3/17/105 Sutton to Wiseman, 16 December 1858.

15 AAW W3/17/106 Sutton to Wiseman, 16 December 1858

16 AAW W3/17/107 Sutton to Wiseman, 20 December 1858.

17 AAW W3/17/108 Sutton to Wiseman, 31 December 1858. For Leadbitter see P.de Wilde, ‘Letters of William Leadbitter (1832–1863), Curate of St. Mary’s Cathedral (Newcastle), 1861 in Northern Catholic History 15 (1982) pp. 15–18.

18 AAW W3/17/111 Leadbitter to Wiseman, 28 February 1859; W3/17/115 Dessein to Wiseman, 28 March 1859; W3/17/117, Dessein to Wiseman 15 August 1859.

19 SDA Boone to Grant, 7 November 1859.

20 Guy, R. E. (ed.), The Synods in English (Stratford on Avon, 1886) p. 286 Google Scholar; for plans to rent Hotel Descroeses, near the church of St. Giles, see AAW W3/17/117, Dessein to Wiseman, 15 August 1859.

21 Catholic Directory 1860 p. 172.

22 Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives B.5342, Schobel to Ullathorne, 8 January 1874.

23 Nottingham Diocesan Archives, Wiseman to Gezelle, 19 April 1862 (Printed Copy).

24 AAW W3/17/25 Sutton to Wiseman, 6 March 1864.

25 The Tablet 28 December 1867 p. 821.

26 AAW W3/17/120 Malou to Wiseman, 27 March 1861.

27 D’Haen, C. (trans.) Guido Gezelle: Poems (Bruges, 1976) pp. 56, 13Google Scholar; see also obituaries in The Tablet 8 September 1900 pp. 380–81, 22 September 1900 p. 457.

28 Janssens de Bisthoven, B., ‘Mgr. de Haerne: Rector van het Engels Seminarie in Brugge 1869–1873’ in Album Antoon Viaene (Bruges, 1970) pp. 24346 Google Scholar; The Tablet 29 March 1890 pp. 485–86.

29 AAW W3/17/125 Sutton to Wiseman, 6 March 1864.

30 Vaughan to Lady Herbert, 11 January 1876, in Leslie, S. (edit.) Letters of Herbert Cardinal Vaughan to Lady Herbert of Lea, 1867 to 1903 (London, 1942) p. 276.Google Scholar

31 Salford Diocesan Archives, Bishop Vaughan’s Report on the English College, Bruges. This and other quotations are taken from Vaughan’s notes.

32 The Tablet 22 March 1890 p. 473.