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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
The middle years of the nineteenth century witnessed the crest of a wave of rapid growth in English towns begun when workers, attracted by the higher wages offered by industry, started to migrate from rural areas to the towns, thereby swelling the populations of the latter at enormous rates.
Birmingham was no exception to this growth spurt. During the last forty years of the eighteenth century Birmingham’s population doubled, a phenomenon that owed not a little to its canal system. ‘By the end of the eighteenth century, the canals [crucial to a region farther away from a coast than any other industrial area in England,] had already transformed the Birmingham neighbourhood, and factories and workshops clustered along their banks.’ Then, between 1831 and 1871 its population increased from 144,000 to 344,000.
1 Gill, Conrad, History of Birmingham. Vol. 1: Manor and Borough to 1865 (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 44 Google Scholar.
2 Briggs, Asa, The Making of Modern England 1783–1867: The Age of Improvement (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), p. 56 Google Scholar.
3 Gill, History of Birmingham, p. 56.
4 Ibidem, p. 368.
5 Ibidem.
6 Ibidem, pp. 368–69.
7 Ibidem, p. 369.
8 Report of the Medical Committee, 1841, p. 32; quoted in Ibidem.
9 Gill, History of Birmingham, p. 277.
10 Edward Caswall, Oratory Report, 1855.
11 Edward Caswall, Oratory Report, 1856.
12 Gill, History of Birmingham, p. 366.
13 White’s Dictionary, 1855; quoted in Ibidem.
14 Gill, History of Birmingham, p. 375.
15 Ibidem, pp. 375–76.
16 Caswall, Journal 1, p. 40.
17 Communion was celebrated ‘regularly’ (four times a year, although five times was ‘almost as common’) from 1578 ( Pugh, R. B., ‘Stratford-sub-Castle’, in Crittall, Elizabeth, ed., A History of Wiltshire, Vol. 6 [London: Published for the Institute of Historical Research by Oxford University Press, 1962], p. 213)Google Scholar. Henry Caswall, while Vicar of the Church of St. Michael and All Angels in nearby Figheldean in the early 1850s, celebrated the sacrament on four Sundays per year, plus Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and Whitsun ( Crowley, D. A., ed., History of the County of Wiltshire, Vol. 15, Amesbury Hundred and Part of Branch and Dale Hundred [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995], p. 117)Google Scholar.
18 Edward Caswall, Journal 1846–47, 1, pp. 40–11.
19 Ibidem.
20 Mozley recalls that after the early morning service that he took for Caswall ‘the children went to the parsonage for the breakfast they had well earned’ ( Mozley, Tom, Reminiscences, Chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford Movement [London: Longmans, Green, 1882], 1, p. 13)Google Scholar.
21 London: James Bums, 1846. In the preface he states that the meditations have been ‘written for the use of young persons known to the author, whose ages vary from ten to fifteen’ (p. viii).
22 Ibidem, p. v.
23 Caswall, Journal, p. 109.
24 Bellasis, Edward, ‘Biographical Preface’, in Caswall, Edward, Hymns and Poems Original and Translated, new ed. (London: Burns and Oates, 1908), p. 13 Google Scholar. Bellasis, basing his account on information directly supplied by Caswall, gives the date of Caswall’s arrival as December 7.
25 Indeed in the preface to the first edition of his Lyra Catholica, published in 1849, he referred to ‘circumstances’ that have ‘afforded him, during the past year, an unlooked-for amount of leisure’. Caswall, Edward, Lyra Catholica: Containing All the Breviary and Missal Hymns with Others from Various Sources (London: James Burns, 1849), p. vi Google Scholar.
26 A copy of Louisa’s will in Edward’s handwriting, preserved in the Wiltshire County Record Office in Trowbridge and dated 5 May 1847, shows her legacy to have amounted to ‘the Sum of £3,333/6/8, 3% consolidated Bank annuities £400 part of a sum of £1,200 secured by a Bond in [a premarital settlement made with Edward] and £4,800 3% reduced Bank annuities and other.’ W.R.O. no. 776/ 1103; witnessed as a true copy of the original by Edward’s brother Thomas Caswall and his attorney John Lambert.
27 Major General Charles Augustus Walker’s will is dated 26 April 1842, so that he would have died some time between late April 1842 and early May 1847.
28 The exact date of Caswall’s offer is not known but can be estimated as late January or early February from the date of Newman’s acknowledgment, 3 Feb. 1850.
29 The conditions for the latter are spelled out in a letter from Newman to R. A. Coffin dated 11 Feb. 1850; cf. LD xiii, p. 417. The date of Caswall’s ‘large donation ... to the Congregation at Birmingham’ is recorded in the Decree Book of the Birmingham Oratory as 8 February 1850; cf. Murray, Placid, Newman the Oratorian (Dublin: Gill and MacMillan, 1969), p. 457 Google Scholar.
30 Ker, Ian, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 344 Google Scholar.
31 Letter from Newman to Frederic William Faber, 6 Feb. 1850; LD xiii: p. 409. On 11 February Newman wrote to Fr. R. A. Coffin:
We think of building an Oratorian House as the investment of our £3,000 or £4,000. . . . This house, (which we are in) will cost us in rent £120 in a few years, £3,000 at 4 per cent is £120, £4,000 at 3 per cent is £120. So that it will be a good investment, and give us, what no one else will give us, a house—which may proceed in building pari passu with a Church—which the Bishop has allowed us to begin collecting for at once. (LD xiii, p. 418).
32 Newman moved in on 16 February 1852, and his fellow Oratorians gradually followed over the next several weeks.
33 Letter of Newman to Mrs. J. W. Bowden, 27 Feb. 1850; LD xiii, p. 432.
34 This took place on December 20, 1851: Bellasis, ‘Biographical Preface’, p. 13.
35 LD xix: p. 16, n. 2.
36 According to Newman’s directions he himself was eventually buried in the same grave as Ambrose St. John, while Caswall was buried to the right and Joseph Gordon to the left, the idea being that Newman and the three men who had unreservedly thrown in their lot with him should form a cruciform company in death, with Newman as head and St. John, Caswall, and Gordon the feet and arms. I am indebted to the late Gerard Tracey, archivist of the Birmingham Oratory, for this information (personal communication).
37 Caswall, Oratory Journal, 27 August 1854.
38 Cf. Letter from Caswall to Newman, 19 February 1855.
39 Cf. Caswall’s 1859 Oratory report expressing the community’s ‘joy’ over the release, for which they had been praying so long.
40 Published by the Statistical Society (of London) in its Proceedings (1840); cited in Gill, History of Birmingham, p. 383.
41 I am indebted to Gill, History of Birmingham, pp. 383–85 for this information.
42 Ibidem, p. 383.
43 Ibidem, p. 384.
44 In 1840 a Concordat was negotiated that gave the archbishops of Canterbury and York the right to be consulted about the appointment of inspectors for Church of England schools and stipulated ‘that no person be appointed without their concurrence’. Quoted in Sturt, Mary, The Education of the People: A History of Primary Education in England and Wales in the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967; repr. 1970), p. 97 Google Scholar.
45 Sturt, Education of the People, p. 97.
46 Adamson, John William, English Education 1789–1902 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1930), p. 134 Google Scholar.
47 The Minutes of 1846, quoted in Sturt, Education of the People, p. 178.
48 Sturt, Education of the People, p. 177.
49 The examinations would cover arithmetic, English grammar, composition, and history, geography, religion (including Scripture), vocal music, teaching, and school lesson organization. (Adamson, English Education, pp. 143–44.).
50 Kay-Shuttleworth founded the first teaching training college in England, St. John’s College in Battersea, in 1839–40.
51 Adamson, English Education, p. 144.
52 Sturt, Education of the People, p. 182. Kay-Shuttleworth anticipated that the benefits of this system would extend beyond the immediate goal of improved education in that the new pupil teachers would most likely come from ‘families supported by manual labour; there will thus open to the children of such families a career which could otherwise be rarely commenced’. (James Kay-Shuttleworth, The School in Relation to the State, the Church and the Congregation 1862, chap. IV, n.p.; quoted in Sturt, Education of the People, p. 180.).
53 i.e., (1) the school give the schoolmaster a rent-free house and a further salary equalling at least twice the grant amount; (2) the schoolmaster’s character, conduct, and ‘attention to his duties’ are satisfactory; (3) his or her school receive a favourable report from the inspector. Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education Dated 21 December 1846: Regulations Respecting the Education of Pupil teachers and Stipendiary Monitors; cited in Maclure, Educational Documents, p. 55.
54 Letter from Caswall to Newman, 21 February 1855.
55 Ibidem.
56 Letter from Newman to Caswall, 27 Feb. 1855 (LD xvi, p. 392).
57 Letter from Caswall to Newman, 5 March 1855; see also the Oratory Journal for the same day.
58 Letter from Caswall to Newman, 14 march 1855.
59 A new road that would connect the road behind the Oratory with Lady Wood Lane would be entirely finished in three months. Newman was very glad to hear of this in a letter from Caswall (5 March 1855).
60 Letter from Newman to Caswall, 16 Feb. 1855 (LD xvi: p. 381). Nowell had estimated a cost of £185 without a ceiling and £200 with, plus £9 for a porch to connect the school with the church: letter from Caswall to Newman, 14 Feb. 1855.
61 Letter from Caswall to Newman, 19 Feb. 1855.
62 These included £200 from the Misses Farrant originally offered for the mission at Smethwick, and £45 from another donor.
63 The name is sometimes spelled Haywood.
64 ‘Some Account of Properties Owned, Held in Trust, Rented, or Otherwise Held, by the Birmingham Oratory. By E. Caswall, F. Treasurer,’ p. 195. Caswall kept this notebook, and others after him added updated information as appropriate. The area on which Heywood built his school rooms is now occupied by the apse and sanctuary of the present Oratory church.
65 Ibidem, p. 115.
66 Fr. Austin Mills wrote to Newman on 27 November 1855 that ‘Edward’s schoolroom’ would be ready for use next Saturday.
67 Cf. Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church, vol. 2 (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1970), p. 416 Google Scholar.
68 Letter from Newman to Ullathorne, 11 Dec. 1856. (LD xvii, p. 475).
69 Letter from Ullathorne to Newman, 12 Dec. 1856. (LD xvii, p. 475).
70 Letter from Newman to Ullathorne, 11 Dec. 1856 (LD xvii, p. 475).
71 Caswall’s Oratory report for 1856 relates that in that year the Sisters of Charity of the Precious Blood took over the management of the girl and infant schools. Joyce Sugg (Ever Yours Affly: Newman, John Henry and His Female Circle [Leominster, England: Gracewing, 1996])Google Scholar observes, ‘In work for young people [Bathurst] was extremely efficient, cared for them tirelessly and had an excellent head for management. Outwardly she was more than ordinarily competent and inwardly she was very tender . . . Her help was invaluable in the big ‘Oratory parish’ (pp. 194, 195). Letter from Newman to Ullathorne, 11 Dec. 1856 (LD xvii: p. 475).
72 This schoolmaster was probably Benjamin Wilson, a friend of Caswall from his youth and, like him, a convert to Roman Catholicism whose married state, however, prevented him from seeking ordination.
73 Caswall, Oratory report for 1857.
74 Ibidem. This was due to the exacting standards that the schools had to meet in order to qualify for government grants.
75 Letter from Caswall to Newman, 16 July 1857. Presumably the work was being done during the school’s summer vacation.
76 Oratory report for that year. Newman rather than Caswall gave the report in 1858 (as was customary, at Michaelmas) because he wished to insert a word of praise and gratitude to Caswall for his newly published book of Hymns and Poems.
77 Caswall, Oratory report for 1859.
78 The new property was quite sufficiently large enough to house both the mission school and the orphanage. (Personal communication from the late Gerard Tracey.).
79 Oratory New Poor School Buildings’, 12 March 1870.
80 This committee was convened by the Bishop of Birmingham in response to ‘the present crisis affecting Catholic schools’, namely, at the close of that year the government would discontinue giving building grants, so that, if funds were not raised in some other way, Catholic children in those areas with more children than the local Catholic schools could accommodate would be compelled to attend non-Catholic schools.
81 Hicks, Charles, A Walk through Smethwick: A Sketch of Its General Aspects and Its Prospects. A Lecture delivered April 1850 in the British School Rooms, Smethwick (Birmingham: Guest, Allen), p. 18 Google Scholar.
82 Ibidem, p. 24.
83 Ibidem, p. 29.
84 Ibidem, p. 21.
85 Ibidem, pp. 28–29. Cf. Gerard Manley Hopkins, after his pastoral experiences in Liverpool and Glasgow, commenting on the degrading effect of industrial towns on the human spirit.
86 Ibidem, p. 30.
87 Ibidem, p. 22.
88 Ibidem, p. 18.
89 Ibidem, p. 32.
90 In 1774 James Watt joined Matthew Boulton in his mill in Soho; in 1796 the famous Soho foundry was built. Church of St. Philip Neri Smethwick: Souvenir Booklet of Consecration Day (June 25, 1936), p. 3.
91 Caswall, Oratory report delivered 29 September 1857.
92 Ibidem.
93 In a letter dated 2 November 1854 Caswall could still inform Newman that ‘at our Sunday school [in Edgbaston] we have some quite small boys from [Smethwick]’.
94 Souvenir Booklet, p. 9.
95 Letter from Caswall to Newman, 2 Nov. 1854.
96 Sugg, Joyce, Ever Yours Affly: John Henry Newman and His Female Circle (Leominster, England: Gracewing, 1996), p. 252 Google Scholar; Mrs. Wootten’s rôle was what today we would call matron or ‘house mother’.
97 Ibidem, p. 236.
99 Caswall, Oratory report for 1855.
100 Caswall, Oratory report for 1857.
101 A leaflet tribute to Frances Farrant at her death in 1869 described her as ‘a Lady who endeared herself to hundreds of the Catholic poor’.101 Anonymous leaflet, quoted in Sugg, Ever Yours Affly, p. 239.
102 Caswall to Newman, 1 Nov. 1854.
103 Ibidem.
104 Caswall to Newman, 2 Nov. 1854.
105 Caswall to Newman, 1 Nov. 1854.
106 Caswall to Newman, 21 Nov. 1854.
107 See, e.g., Newman to J. D. Dalgaims, [4? Nov. 1854] (LD xiv: pp. 286–87); Newman to Ambrose St. John, 7 Nov. 1854 (Ibidem, pp. 289–90); Newman to Caswall, 15 Nov. (Ibidem, p. 300).
108 Caswall to Newman, 2 Nov. 1854.
109 Caswall, Oratory report for 1857.
110 Caswall initially donated £50 and then added £78.4.11 to make up the deficit.
111 Rt. Hon. The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council of Education, Revised Code of Regulations, 1862.
112 Edward Caswall, notes on Smethwick, recorded between June and December 1876 in ‘Some Account of Properties Owned, Held in Trust, Rented, or Otherwise Held, by the Birmingham Oratory’.
113 Caswall, Oratory report for 1859.
114 A statement of subscriptions and expenditures dated 20 Oct. 1861 lists this donation.
115 The statement is dated 20 October; the authorization is not dated except for the year.
116 The fact that the builder’s fee is listed in the expenditures for 1861 suggests such a date.
117 Letter, n. d.
118 Letter, n. d. Some sources spell the name McGarvie. That her sister Mary was also certificated is indicated by a form signed by Fathers Caswall, St. John, and Scott (then priest at Smethwick) and dated September 1866.
119 Letter, 25 July 1863.
120 Caswall’s Smethwick notes p. 183. In addition to Caswall himself the trustees were Newman, Ambrose St. John, John Hardman, John Poncia, and Robert Fletcher.
121 Caswall’s Smethwick notes, p. 185.
122 Letter from Scott to Flanagan, n. d.
123 Souvenir Booklet, p. 13.
124 Ibidem.
125 Ibidem.
126 Ibidem.
127 Ibidem, p. 173.
128 Ibidem.
129 Ibidem, p. 175.
130 Ibidem.
131 Ibidem, p. 171
132 Ibidem, p. 177. This note was added in an unknown hand, Caswall having died in 1878.
133 Ibidem, p. 191, dated 21 June 1876.
134 Quoted in Murray, Placid, Newman the Oratorian (Dublin: Gill and MacMillan, 1969), p. 426 Google Scholar.
135 Newman, ‘Remarks on the Oratorian Vocation (1856): Rough Draft’, quoted in Murray, Newman the Oratorian, pp. 312, 307.
136 Letter of Newman to Faber, 16 Feb. 1849 (LD xiii: p. 50).