Scandal in Somers town: conspiracism and Catholic schools in early Victorian England

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 415-439
Author(s):  
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Schools ◽  
Urban Population ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Small School ◽  
Charitable Organizations ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
The Poor ◽  
History Of

The middle years of the nineteenth century are notable in the history of Catholicism in England for the development of the ‘papal aggression’ crisis. Catholic emancipation had been met with suspicion by Protestant groups and this suspicion grew into violent antipathy with the publication by Nicholas Wiseman of ‘Ex Porta Flaminia.’ At the same time that this crisis was emerging, Catholic charitable organizations were also attempting to garner support from the state for the building of Catholic schools. With a boom in the poor, urban population, fuelled by the arrival of Irish refugees, this assistance was urgently required. In the midst of this a small school in the heart of London became the focus of a cause célèbre. The belief that this school had been funded by lucre, defrauded from dying and vulnerable members of the Somers Town community by simonist priests, provided the source of a widespread conspiracy theory. The result of this conspiracy theory was a lawsuit, brought in 1851 by the relatives of a deceased benefactor of the school, against the newly enthroned Cardinal Wiseman. Metairie vs. Wiseman became one of the most celebrated and cited cases of the early Victorian era.

Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum 1847–1901. By David Wright. [Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. xii, 244 and (Index) 10 pp. Hardback £40. ISBN 0–19–924639–4.]

2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 463-492
Author(s):  
M. A. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disability ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Poor Law ◽  
National Network ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Mentally Disabled ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Drastic Increase ◽  
History Of

Under the auspices of the 1808 Asylums Act, twelve county asylums for the institutionalised care of “dangerous idiots and lunatics” were created from 1808 through 1834. The advent of the New Poor Law in that latter year, with its emphasis on economising costs through “relieving” the poor in Union workhouses, resulted in a drastic increase in the number of mentally disabled people under the care of the Poor Law Overseers. Subsequently (and partially in consequence) the Lunatics Act of 1845 directed that all “lunatics, idiots, or persons of unsound mind” be institutionalised in county asylums. The Earlswood Asylum (formerly the National Asylum for Idiots) was the premier establishment for the care of people with mental disabilities throughout the Victorian era, and the institution upon which a national network would be modelled. This book chronicles and examines the history of the Earlswood Asylum from 1847–1901.

scholarly journals The Materiality of English Suicide Letters, c. 1700 – c. 1850

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Ella Sbaraini
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Emotional Distress ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Press ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Scholars have explored eighteenth-century suicide letters from a literary perspective, examining issues of performativity and reception. However, it is fruitful to see these letters as material as well as textual objects, which were utterly embedded in people's social lives. Using thirty manuscript letters, in conjunction with other sources, this article explores the contexts in which suicide letters were written and left for others. It looks at how authors used space and other materials to convey meaning, and argues that these letters were epistolary documents usually meant for specific, known persons, rather than the press. Generally written by members of the ‘lower orders’, these letters also provide insight into the emotional writing practices of the poor, and their experiences of emotional distress. Overall, this article proposes that these neglected documents should be used to investigate the emotional and material contexts for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century suicide. It also argues that, at a time when the history of emotions has reached considerable prominence, historians must be more attentive to the experiences of the suicidal.

Defaming and Defining ‘Bloody Mary’ in Nineteenth-Century England

2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 287-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Richards
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
John Foxe ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Catholic Faith ◽  
Papal Authority ◽  
Mary Tudor

Although the reputation of Englands first queen regnant, Mary Tudor (died 1558) had remained substantially unchanged in the intervening centuries, there were always some defenders of that Catholic queen among the historians of Victorian England. It is worth noting, however, that such revisionism made little if any impact on the schoolroom history textbooks, where Marys reputation remained much as John Foxe had defined it. Such anxiety as there was about attempts to restore something of Marys reputation were made more problematic by the increasing number and increasingly visible presence of a comprehensive Catholic hierarchy in the nineteenth century, and by high-profile converts to the Catholic faith and papal authority. The pre-eminent historians of the later Victorian era consistently remained more favourable to the reign of Elizabeth, seen as the destroyer,of an effective Catholic church in England.

scholarly journals Savings banks as an institutional import: the case of nineteenth-century Ireland

2003 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
CORMAC Ó GRÁDA
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Aggregate Data ◽  
Early History ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Savings Banks ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Savings Bank ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

The article examines the early history of provident institutions or trustee savings banks in Ireland. Combining aggregate data and an archive-based study of one savings bank, it describes the growth and performance of this ‘institutional import’. By and large, Irish savings banks catered for the lower-middle and middle classes, not the poor as intended by the founders of the movement. The article also explains how the collapse of three savings banks in 1848 dealt savings banks in Ireland as a whole a blow from which they never really recovered.

Return to the Wilberforce–Huxley Debate

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vernon Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Young Scientist ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Rhetorical History ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Thomas Henry Huxley ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historic City ◽  
Insight Into

One hundred and twenty-eight years ago in the historic city of Oxford a relatively brief impromptu verbal exchange at a scientific convention occurred. It is still vividly remembered in and out of academia. This so-called ‘debate’ between the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, and the young scientist, Thomas Henry Huxley, a simple and concrete episode, has continued to symbolize dramatically the complex and abstract phenomenon of the conflict between science and religion in the late nineteenth century. while that symbol may be somewhat inaccurate, or its relevance may have shifted from a century ago, it still is a powerful image, one which continues to be an important part of the religious, scientific and rhetorical history of the late Victorian era. Moore recently wrote: ‘No battle of the nineteenth century, save Waterloo, is better known.’ It is, as Altholz put it, ‘one of those historical events the substance and significance of which are clear, but whose specifics are decidedly fuzzy around the edges.’ It is the purpose of this paper to present a full and balanced view of the specific ingredients, permitting a better insight into the event's symbolism and significance.

Parties and Issues in Early Victorian England

1966 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. Aydelotte
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
The Other ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Parliamentary Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Oratory

It has never been established how far, in the early Victorian House of Commons, voting on issues followed party lines. It might in general seem plausible to assume — what political oratory generally contrives to suggest — that there are ideological disagreements between parties and that it makes a difference which of two major opposing parties is in control of the Government. This is, indeed, the line taken by some students of politics. A number of historians and political observers have, however, inclined to the contrary opinion and have, for various reasons, tended to play down the role of issues in party disputes. Much of what has been written on political history and, in particular, on the history of Parliament has had a distinct anti-ideological flavor.One line of argument is that issues on which disagreement exists are not always party questions. Robert Trelford McKenzie begins his study of British parties by pointing out that Parliament just before 1830 was “divided on a great issue of principle, namely Catholic emancipation,” and just after 1830, on another, parliamentary reform. He continues: “But on neither issue was there a clear division along strict party lines.” The distinguished administration of Sir Robert Peel in the 1840s was based, according to Norman Gash, on a party “deeply divided both on policy and personalities.” The other side of the House at that time is usually thought to have been even more disunited. It has even been suggested that, in the confused politics of the mid-nineteenth century, the wordsconservativeandradicaleach meant so many different things that they cannot be defined in terms of programs and objectives and that these polarities may more usefully be considered in terms of tempers and approaches.

Rich and Poor: the Great Divide in Ancient Rome and Victorian England

1990 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Bastomsky
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Third World ◽  
First Century ◽  
Absolute Maximum ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
World Series ◽  
The Poor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cost

In his book, The Roman Empire (Fontana History of the Ancient World Series), Colin Wells mentions incomes and the cost of living in first-century Italy. He concludes that a wage of 4 sesterces a day was an ‘absolute maximum’ and goes on to comment that ‘it is hard to tell whether the discrepancy between the really rich and the labouring poor was greater in some third-world countries today, or in Victorian England… To prove his point Wells gives £300,000 per annum for the Marquess of Bute as an example of an enormous income in the nineteenth century, though he does not tell us what the poor would have earned then.

Afterword

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela McCarthy ◽  
T.M. Devine
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scottish Diaspora

We summarise this study’s contribution to several levels of historical understanding: the British commercial empire in Asia; the story of tea as a global commodity; Sri Lanka’s economic development in the nineteenth century; the experience of British Asian planters in the Victorian era; the history of the Scottish diaspora; and last, but by no means least, in providing the first biography of James Taylor, the pioneer of Ceylon tea. In addition, we summarise Taylor’s personality and character.

‘Our Catholic school’: themes and patterns in early Catholic school buildings and architecture before 1872

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-66
Author(s):  
Diane M. Watters
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Education ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Catholic Schools ◽  
Catholic School ◽  
School Buildings ◽  
School Architecture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Catholic Schooling

The transformation in Catholic schooling after the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, is widely recognised. But research on the building of Catholic schools, beginning with the early decades of the nineteenth century, has not yet been done to a level that can support the claim that the ‘greatest impact’ on building was the transfer of voluntary Catholic primaries to the education authorities. By contrast with the history of Catholic education, there has been no thematic study of Scotland's historic school architecture. The aim here is to address that gap, and provide a foundation for further study, by tracing the early development of Catholic school buildings down to the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872. Educational historians have maintained the narrative that, before 1872, many school buildings were ‘little more than hovels’, and the date of 1918 has been identified as the watershed for improvement. That view is challenged.

scholarly journals Working-Class Housing in Birmingham During the Industrial Revolution

1986 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-94
Author(s):  
Eric Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Urban Population ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Housing Conditions ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town

It is not too much to say that over the last twenty years the history of working-class housing in the nineteenth century has been transformed. Many older historians, of course, took it for granted that the quality of houses built to meet the needs of the fast-growing urban population was uniformly bad, a testimony to the avarice of builders and landlords alike. Beliefs of this kind owed much to Engels, and to the Hammonds writing earlier this century about the life of the town labourter. One of the first suggestions that these views were really an over-simplified description of housing conditions came from Professor Ashworth in the 1950's, who pointed out that it was quite wrong to suppose that all nineteenth-century towns developed on the same lines, a kind of Coketown endlessly repeated. While not denying that there was a great deal of poor-quality building, more recently historians have made it clear that newer town housing of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was not necessarily worse than housing built earlier on, or worse than rural housing built at the same time; that new building varied in construction and amenities in the same town, and from town to town; that the skilled working classes were likely to live in better-quality housing than the unskilled; and that the segregation of working-class housing from middle-class housing, and of the better-off working classes from the labouring classes, again varied from town to town.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document