Durham E-Theses Varieties of Anti-Catholicism on Tyneside and in County Durham, 1845-1870 BUSH, JONATHAN How to cite: BUSH, JONATHAN (2012) Varieties of Anti-Catholicism on Tyneside and in County Durham, 1845-1870, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3648/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Abstract: Varieties of Anti-Catholicism on Tyneside and in County Durham, 1845- 1870 Jonathan Bush This study examines the nature and extent of various forms of anti-Catholicism which existed on Tyneside and in County Durham between 1845 and 1870. Previous studies that have touched upon anti-Catholicism in the North East of England have tended to argue that local cultural factors reduced the anti-Catholic feeling which was more evident in other areas of the country during this period. However, in applying and expanding upon previous theories of anti-Catholicism, the study will take a multi-faceted and broader perspective, rather than simply a manifestation of one specific type, to argue that local cultural conditions actively encouraged different forms of anti-Catholicism in different areas within Tyneside and in County Durham. It will demonstrate this through an examination of the major tenets of anti-Catholic ideology and their appeal among the wider population; the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various political campaigns which drew on ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal’ anti-Catholic thought; the Protestant response to the resurgence of Catholicism at the local level and the role played by the local Catholic communities in increasing anti- Catholicism; and, finally, the varieties of religious violence, both English and Irish and intra-Irish, which were greatly influenced by local conditions and circumstances. This study has wider implications for our understanding of the pervasive and all-encompassing nature of nineteenth-century English anti-Catholicism generally. It also contributes towards the wider debate on North East regional identity by questioning the continued credibility of a paradigm which views the region as exceptionally tolerant and coherent. i Varieties of Anti-Catholicism on Tyneside and in County Durham, 1845-1870 This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D, undertaken in the Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University Jonathan Bush 2012 ii John Martin, The Last Judgement, 1853 (© Tate, London) iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of Copyright v Acknowledgements vi Conventions and Abbreviations vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I IDEOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS 20 CHAPTER II PAPAL AGGRESSION 49 CHAPTER III THE ‘PROTESTANT CONSTITUTION’ 94 CHAPTER IV LIBERTY AND TYRANNY 141 CHAPTER V THE ‘SECOND SPRING’ 182 CHAPTER VI RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE 242 CONCLUSION 294 Appendix I 297 Appendix II 298 Bibliography 299 iv Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author and information derived from it should be acknowledged. v Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude towards my current supervisor, Dr. Sheridan Gilley, and previous supervisor, Dr. Alison Forrestal, for their support and advice throughout the period of my study; the staff of the public and university libraries and archives in the North East, particularly Newcastle Central Library and Durham University Library Special Collections, for their assistance; Durham University for their generous (and unexpected) one-year studentship to allow me the luxury of working on my thesis full-time in the first year; Mr. Alastair Fraser for proof-reading the thesis; and my wife Lucy, whose constant encouragement over the last seven years ensured the eventual completion of this work. vi Conventions County Durham refers to the pre-1973 boundaries of the old county of Durham and is used throughout to avoid confusion with the city of Durham. The county at this time stretched from the south of the Tyne to the northern banks of the Tees (including Stockton and Hartlepool). Tyneside incorporates those settlements on the banks of the Tyne (including Tynemouth, North Shields, Wallsend and Newcastle). The word ‘Evangelical(s)’ (upper case) refers exclusively to the distinctive body of Low-Church Anglicans of that name. The word ‘evangelical(s)’ (lower case) refers either to the general culture itself or evangelicals of all persuasion. However, capitalisation of organisation names, such as the Evangelical Alliance, is retained. Abbreviations TWAS – Tyne and Wear Archives Service DCRO – Durham County Record Office DULSP – Durham University Library Special Collections RCHNDA – Roman Catholic Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Archives vii INTRODUCTION At the Victoria Rooms in Grey Street, Newcastle, on 10 February 1854, an exhibition of the work of the local Northumbrian painter, John Martin, opened to the general public. Born in Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, in 1789, Martin was the inventor of an entirely new genre of painting, the ‘apocalyptic sublime’. On display in this exhibition was a triptych of his paintings based on the Book of Revelation. This included The Last Judgement, a work depicting the valley of Jehoshaphat and the separation of ‘the great and good of Western culture’ from the ‘damned’.1 Among those descending into Hell was the Pope (the ‘Whore of Babylon’), as well as St. Ignatius Loyola dressed in cope and mitre.2 Far from being a work marginal to mid-Victorian culture, Martin's paintings were among the most popular, touring Britain and the United States throughout the rest of the nineteenth century.3 John Martin’s paintings are a local illustration of the continuation of a tradition of anti- Catholicism which, until comparatively recently, had been one of the most consistent and dominant tenets of English national identity since the Reformation.4 Developing out of an atmosphere of bitter religious divisions in the sixteenth century, anti-Catholicism (broadly defined as fear of, and hostility towards, the Catholic Church and its adherents) reached its zenith as a cultural force in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.5 However, even as the 1 See frontispiece. 2 Barbara C. Morden, John Martin and Apocalypse Now! (Northumbria Press: Newcastle, 2010), p. 46. The ‘damned’ of the Last Judgement also included Anglican bishops in lawn sleeves, suggesting that Martin was a Dissenter, possibly a Presbyterian. 3 For a biography of Martin, see Max Adams, The Prometheans: John Martin and the generation that stole the future (London: Quercus, 2010). 4 John Wolffe has dated the centrality of anti-Catholicism to British national identity until as recently as Pope John Paul II’s visit to Britain in 1982. See John Wolffe, ‘Change and Continuity in British Anti-Catholicism, 1829-1982’, Catholicism in Britain and France since 1789, ed. by Nicholas Atkin and Frank Tallett (London: The Hambledon Press, 1996), p. 68. 5 For the relationship between anti-Catholicism and national identity in the post-Reformation period, see C.Z. Wiener, ‘The Beleaguered Isle: A Study of Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Anti-Catholicism’, Past and Present, 51 (1971), pp. 27-62; David Loades, 'The Origins of English Protestant Nationalism', Studies in Church History, 18 (1982), pp. 297-307; R. Clifton, ‘The Popular Fear of Catholics during the English Revolution’, Past 1 era of the Gordon Riots gave way to a more enlightened age symbolised by the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829, old prejudices continued to resurface. 6 Indeed, Mary Hickman has suggested that anti-Catholicism ‘remained the sentiment which most clearly defined the nation’ well after 1829.7.The principal reasons for its continued longevity during the Victorian period are well-known. These included the infusing of strands of evangelical thought with anti-Catholicism; the growing influence of Tractarianism and, later, Ritualism, within the Church of England; the rise of nonconformity with an evangelical anti-Catholic worldview; and the visible resurgence of the Roman Catholic religion greatly influenced by ultramontane priests and large numbers of Irish immigrants. 8 Whatever the reasons for its prevalence, Victorian anti-Catholicism was more than simply a theological standpoint against the Church of Rome. Its many different and often disparate strands, whether political, social, economic or cultural, helped to define national identity not only in England but also in the rest of the British Isles and the Anglophone world generally.9 and Present, 52 (1971), pp. 168-87; and J.H. Hexter, ‘The Protestant Revival and the Catholic Question in England 1778-1829’, Journal of Modern History, 8 (1936), pp. 297-319. 6 Wolffe, ‘Change and Continuity’, p. 68. 7 Mary J. Hickman, Religion, Class and Identity: The State, the Catholic Church and the Education of the Irish in Britain (Ashgate: Aldershot, 1995), p. 43. 8 For a broader discussion of nineteenth century Protestant evangelical activity, see David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); and D. Englander, ‘The Word and the World: Evangelicalism in the Victorian City’, Religion in Victorian Britain, ed. by Parsons, G., II (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), pp. 14-38. For the role of Tractarianism within the Church of England, see Sheridan Gilley, ‘The Church of England in the Nineteenth Century’ A History of Religion in Britain, pp.