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The Conversion of Lord Ripon in 1874

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Anthony F. Denholm
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Extract

Lord Ripon’s reception into the Catholic Church early in September 1874 caused a minor sensation in the world of politics and a howl of no-popery protest in the non-Catholic press. Ripon’s conversion took London society and even his closest friends by surprise. Victorians had long accustomed themselves to the steady drift of ritualists and Puseyites to Rome, but were puzzled when this wealthy nobleman, evangelical Anglican, ex-Christian-Socialist friend of F. D. Maurice, and Grand Master of the English Freemasons, was received into the Catholic Church on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin on September 8, 1874.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 1969 , pp. 111 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1969

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References

1. The gross annual value of Ripon's Lincolnshire and Yorkshire estates was £29, 162 by the early 1880s, and comprised some 21,770 acres. See John, Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, 4th Ed.. London 1883, p. 381.Google Scholar

2. Ripon Papers (British Museum), 43547, Vol. LVII, Goderich to Tom Hughes, July 14, 1852.

3. Lucien, Wolf, Life of Lord Ripon, 2 Vols., London 1921, Vol. 1, p. 339. An undated letter from Ripon to Fr. Dalgairns.Google Scholar

4. Wolf, Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 348.Google Scholar Letter from Dean Liddon to Ripon, August 20, 1874. Dean Liddon was a close friend of Gladstone.

5. Gladstone to Lord Acton, October 26, 1874, from Figgis, J. N. and Lawrence, R. V., Lord Acton's Correspondence, London 1917, p. 48.Google Scholar

6. The Times, September 5, 1874.

7. Wolf, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 295.Google Scholar

8. Contemporary Review, October 1874.

9. This correspondence is quoted by Wolf, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 297–310.Google Scholar

10. Abbot, Gasquet (Ed.), Lord Acton and His Circle, London 1906, p. 358.Google Scholar Letter from Acton to Richard Simpson, November 4, 1874.

11. Ibid., p. 358.

12. Gladstone later modified his views when the Contemporary Review article was re-edited for Gladstone's Gleanings, Vol. VI.

13. Ramm, A. (Ed.), The Political Correspondence of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville, 1868-1876, London 1952.Google Scholar Letter 995. This was written after the protracted correspondence with Ripon.

14. Ibid. Letter 996.

15. See Wolf, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 295.Google Scholar

16. By 1880 Gladstone's views had sufficiently mellowed to offer Ripon the Viceroyalty of India — a post requiring the maximum loyalty to the throne. This was accepted and Ripon spent four years in India earning for himself the title of “the best loved viceroy” for his efforts to improve the conditions of life for the Indian population. Ripon later served under Gladstone as Colonial Secretary. He supported Home Rule, opposed the Boer War, and the Liberal imperialists, and took office as leader of the Liberals in the Lords in 1906. He remained a radical to the end, supporting Lloyd George's plan for old age pensions, and corresponding with co-operators in the last year of his life (1909). He lived an exemplary Catholic life, and held the office of President of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul from 1890 until his death.

17. In December 1876 Manning had asked Lord Denbigh to secure Ripon's agreement to a place on a pro-Turk committee “on Catholic grounds”. See Shannon, R. T., Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation 1876, London 1963, p. 194.Google Scholar The only other leading Catholic layman against the pro-Turk party was Ambrose Philipps de Lisle.

18. Report of the Co-operative Congress 1878, First Day. This address was later published as an article by the Month in July 1879.

19. Month, February 1879, Lord Ripon, “Some Thoughts on International Morality”.