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‘The Times are Fast Approaching’: Bishop Charles Walmesley OSB (1722–1797) as Prophet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Geoffrey Scott
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Extract

For English Catholics the eighteenth century has justifiably been termed ‘the age of Challoner’, because Richard Challoner, vicar apostolic of the London District between 1758 and 1781, left a distinctive mark on the character of the English Catholic Church through his long period in office at a formative period and through his many popular spiritual books and pamphlets. Challoner's pre-eminence has tended to diminish the stature of all other bishops appointed as vicars apostolic to the four districts in England and Wales during the course of the century. The only other vicar apostolic who came close to Challoner was the Benedictine monk, Charles Walmesley, a near-contemporary and coadjutor in the Western District from 1756 to 1764, when he became vicar apostolic of that district until his death in 1797. Although Walmesley's published works were far fewer than Challoner's, they demonstrated a wider range of interests and a more original mind. For, while Challoner has often been taken as the representative eighteenth-century English Catholic clergyman, the main feature of his mind, a dread of innovation, prevented him from tuning his theology to the new world of eighteenthcentury scientific and philosophical enquiry.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , October 1985 , pp. 590 - 604
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

1 Duffy, E., Challoner and his Church: A Catholic Bishop in Georgian England, London 1981Google Scholar, for a recent study of the bishop and his period.

2 Walmesley's published works are listed in Gillow, J., A Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, London 1885Google Scholar, v. 570.

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25 General History, 475. Birmingham Archidiocesan Archives, C-998, n.d. (c. 1790) for John Kirk's computation that Walmesley's figure was accurate.

26 General History, 27.

27 For surveys of such literature at the end of the eighteenth century see J. F. C. Harrison, The Second Coming: Popular millenarianism 1780–1850, London – Henley 1979, ch. 1; Oliver, Prophets, chs 2 and 3.

28 NAD H 77, 24 October 1772, Augustine Moore to President Placid Naylor.

29 ‘These monasteries were: St Gregory's Douai, St Laurence's Dieulouard (Lorraine), St Edmund’s Paris, SS Adrian and Denis Lambspring (Hildesheim).

30 [J. Wilson OSB], Histoire générale de l'Église chrétienne traduit de l'anglais de Mgr. Pastorini, par un religieux bénédictin de la Congrégation de S. Maur, Rouen 1777; Gillow, Dictionary, v. 570, lists an Italian translation (Rome 1778), but no German translation until that of the Abbé Goldhagen in 1785. General History, London 1798 edn. v, mentions a Latin translation completed at Paris after 1778 by an English Benedictine. For other translations see LAN, 18 H 64, 22 May and 4 October 1778, C. Walmesley to Walker; ibid., 7 April, 14 October 1779, and 30 April 1780, C. Walmesley to Walker; LAN, 18 H 31, 17 August 1780, G. Cowley to Walker.

31 LAN, 18 H 67, 14 March, 21 April 1778, J. Waters to Walker; LAN, 18 H 64, 18 March, 22 May 1778, C. Walmesley to Walker.

32 Downside Abbey, Bath, MS 212, Account Book of the South Province, contains entries for purchases of the book.

33 Douai Abbey, Woolhampton, Accounts of St Edmund's Paris, shows Walmesley and Weld each sending ten copies of the General History to France. Walmesley's went to the famous Abbé Paolo Frisi (1728–84), with whose many scientific writings Walmesley had been impressed. For the conflict with the Catholic Committee, B. Ward, Dawn, i. ch. v.

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34 Jacob, Newtonians, 171; see also pp. 237–50.

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40 Downside Abbey, North Province Account Book, 3, 73–6, fragment of a sermon c. 1786.

41 Northumberland Record Office, RCD 1/1/40, 18 April 1791, C. Walmesley to Bishop W. Gibson.

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53 Sig. Pastorini, The General History, New York 1807Google Scholar, 1834, 1846, 1858; and Boston 1851, 1865. Much work still needs to be done on the relationship of the General History to the American Catholicism of this period.