Notes on the chapters

Visit of Papal Legate to Chester, 1932. On the platform of the General Station.

Introduction

1 The fullest account of the medieval Church in Chester is in D. Jones, The Church in Chester 1300-1540, Chetham Society, Vol. VII, 3rd Series, 1957.

Chapter I: Penal times

2 Recusancy in Chester under Queen Elizabeth has been described in K. R. Wark, Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire, Chetham Society, Vol. XIX, 3rd Series, 1971.

3 The Churchwardens' Accounts for St. Mary's on the Hill, St. Michael's and Holy Trinity Churches have been printed in the Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society of Chester and North Wales, New Series, Vols. 2 (1888), 3 (1890), 38 (1951).

4 G. Anstruther, O.P., The Seminary Priests, Vol. I (Durham, 1968), p. 171.

5 R. Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests (London, 1924), pp. 146-7.

6 Chester City Record Office, QSE 8/11, 9.

7 P. R, Harris, The Reports of William Udall, Informer, Recusant History, Vol. 8, No.4 (1966), p. 221.

8 Historical MSS. Commission, Report of MSS. belonging to the Corporation of Chester, Appendix to Eighth Report  (1881), pp. 376-7, 397.

9 Wark, op. cit. p. 6.

10 Chester City Record Office, M/L/2 fo. 270/3, 5, 14.

11 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 6 (1909), p. 76.

12 Historical MSS. Commission, pp. 387, 390.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Quarter Sessions Records for the County Palatine of Chester, 1559-1760, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. 94 (1940), p. 182.

16 Chester City Record Office, QSF/82/2 fo. 112.

17 Hearth Tax Returns for the City of Chester 1664-5, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. LII (1906), p. 11.

18 H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus, Vol. 2 (1879), pp. 1-9.

19 Ibid. p. 181.

20 Ibid. Vol. 3, p. 180, Vol. 7, pp. 323, 1399.

21 Ibid. Vol. 7, p. 315.

22 Ibid. Vol. 5, pp. 320, 367.

23 Ibid. Vol. 7, p. 1405.

24 W. Price, Three Jesuits at Plowden Hall in Shropshire in the Eighteenth Century, Recusant History, Vol. 10, No.3 (1969), p. 172.

25 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 8, p. 341, Vol. 28, p. 281.

26 House of Lords' Library, Papists' Returns; Chester City Record Office, QSF/90/3 fo.285-6.

27 Chester City Record Office, QSF/92/2 fo. 149.

28 They are deposited in the House of Lords' Library.

29 Cheshire County Record Office, EDV/7.

30 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 13, p. 173, Vol. 6, p. 340.

31 Ibid. Vol. 10, p. 480, n.

32 Ushaw MSS. Vol. III, No. 124. I owe this reference to S. Lander, Esq.

33 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 12, p. 7.

34 Ibid. p. 12, Vol. 16, p. 572.

35 Ibid. Vol. 6, p. 165, Vol. 63, p. 413. The Anglican Visitation of St. John's parish also mentions him in 1778. Cheshire Record Office, EDV/1/2.

36 History of the Diocese of Shrewsbury, Vol. II, p. 3. Parry's Entry was the only slum unit of its kind that could boast of having its own pump.

Chapter II: The priests of the nineteenth century

1 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 12, p. 174, Vol. 63, p. 410.

2 J. Malone, Peter Newby, 1745-1827 (Aylesford, 1964), pp. 104-5.

3 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 63, p. 417; J. Gillow, Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, Vol. V, p. 259. He was followed in 1790 by his younger brother, John, then aged twelve. John, who was the last of the Douai priests, spent much of his priestly life at Birchley, Lancs., where he built the church. He died at the age of 86, in 1864.

4 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 63, pp. 315-337.

5 The Haydock Papers have preserved John Penswick's account of what happened. The complete story is told by D. Milburn in A History of Ushaw College, (Durham, 1964), Ch. I, II, and III. Anne Penswick, the aunt of Thomas and John who was a Poor Clare at Gravelines, was also forced to flee. Her community returned to Gosfield, Essex, where she became Abbess in 1799.

6 The church plate was afterwards recovered, and sold to help the students who were in prison. The refectory plate lay undiscovered until 1863, when it was found under what had become a barracks. It was returned to St. Edmunds, Ware, and Ushaw, the two descendants of Douai.

7 Milburn, op. cit. p. 39.

8 Gillow, loc. cit. Though most of the Vicars Apostolic seem to have had their portraits painted, I have not been able to discover one of Penswick.

9 The registration is in the Chester City Record Office, QSF/106.

10 The Anglican Vicar of St. John's reported a Visitation in 1811, at which Confirmation was administered by the Bishop. Cheshire Record Office, EDV/7/4/132.

11 It is now preserved in the sacristy of St. Werburgh's church.

12 Milburn, op. cit. p. 117.

13 I owe most of the information on John Briggs to Father George Bradley, archivist of the Leeds Diocese, who drew my attention to it, and made arrangements for me to have access to it.

14 It is now in the sacristy of St. Werburgh's.

15 M. Abbott, Diocese of Shrewsbury Centenary Record, pp. 61, 77.

16 It was mentioned in The Catholic Times, 1955.

17 G. A. Beck, The English Catholics 1850-1950 (London, 1950), pp. 70-71.

18 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 12, p. 226.

19 Ibid. Vol. 16, p. 520.

20 Ecclesiastical Census, 1851, Public Record Office, H.O. 129, 459. The compilers of this census calculated that about 42% of the population of the whole country could not go to church on the Sunday the census was taken. The Catholic population in Chester would have been higher than Father Carbery's figure.

21 An account of the beginnings of Dee House was written by Mother Aloysia Russell F.C.J. in 1891, and incorporated by Mgr. E. Slaughter in his History of the Diocese.

22 Booklet on the History of the Friars in Chester.

23 Catholic Record Society, Vol. 8, p. 339.

24 Michael Harnett had already contributed £1,000 towards the building of a school at Hyde in 1854, and £500 towards the school at Neston in 1857.

25 Thomas Wallington was received into the Church at Latchford in 1886, and was a great benefactor to the parish there.

26 Father Clare was popular as a preacher and mission giver at this time, especially in Lancashire and Cheshire. He came from St. Helen's.

27 The events described in [this section] were recorded in the Chester Courant and Cheshire Observer.

Chapter III: Growth in the nineteenth century

1 M. J. Kingman, Chester 1801-1861.

2 Report on the State of the Irish Poor in Great Britain, House of Commons Papers, Vol. XXXIV, (1836), Appendix G, p. 471.

3 Catholic Directory, 1826, p. 49.

Chapter V: Catholic education in Chester

1 J. T. Driver, Cheshire in the Later Middle Ages (Chester, 1970), p. 148.

2 Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, Report for 1870, p. 289.

3 Letters to Bishop Briggs, deposited in the Council House, Shrewsbury.

4 Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, 1854, p. 673.

5 Deposited in the Council House, Shrewsbury.

6 The Log Books of all the Catholic schools of Chester are now deposited in Chester City Record Office. The Parish Notice Books are in St. Werburgh's.

Chapter VI: Parish life in the last hundred years	Contents	Bibliography
From Catholicism in Chester: A Double Centenary 1875-1975
© 1975 Sister Mary Winefride Sturman, OSU