This review of Bishop William Gibson's strenuous efforts to provide an alternative place of training in the north of England for those of his students who were forced by political events to vacate the English Secular College at Douai in the 1790's must surely begin as far back as 1781, for in that year he became sixteenth president of that distinguished institution. Of a Northumbrian family, he was educated at Douai College and immediately after ordination in 1764 he became chaplain to the Silvertop family at Minsteracres in Northumberland and the first missioner there. Nevertheless, he seems to have had leisure enough to be away in London for six years, where he became known as a progressive, and sided with those who thought that the regime at Douai College needed to be overhauled drastically if it was to match the quality of the buildings put up earlier in the century. During his presidency he achieved much and won the praise of like-minded liberals.[1] But even he was not able to solve the severe financial problems which continually beset the college during the course of the eighteenth century. Indeed, if we are to believe his many critics, he made the situation a good deal worse. Even nature conspired against him: a freak storm in 1788 caused a considerable amount of structural damage, necessitating the costly repair of many of the windows along the front of the college and every single window in the chapel.[2]
By this time the president had discarded some of his liberal thinking, as is apparent in his correspondence about the oath of allegiance recently introduced into England, in his criticism of certain democratic opinions expressed by the University of Douai in 1789 and his likening of the Catholic Committee's views on bishops to those of the French Parliaments.[3]
Nine years in office had taken their toll. "I do not suppose any one ever had so hard a time as I have had", he complained to his brother, Bishop Matthew Gibson of the Northern District.[4] When the much-loved Matthew died at the early age of 57 in May 1790, William wrote to Rome saying that as he needed to return to England (presumably to attend to his brother's estate) he wished to relinquish control of the college on grounds of ill health. However, he revoked his resignation shortly afterwards, and thus he was still president of Douai College when the cardinals in curia shortly afterwards elected him "omnibus votis" to succeed his brother as bishop in the Northern District[6] in view of his strenuous efforts to defend orthodoxy.[7]
The new bishop, fully aware of the great burden he was taking upon himself back in England,[8] nevertheless continued to influence affairs at Douai, for he took an active part in arranging for the appointment of the new president. With many of his priests ready to support Edward Kitchin, chaplain at Lartington Hall on the border of Co. Durham and N. Yorks., Bishop Gibson put him at the head of his recommendations to Propaganda, a prudent, pious man, a "strenuous defender of the Catholic Faith and Ecclesiastical Tradition". In second place he suggested Thomas Eyre, "prudent and just, exemplary in missionary duties", with John Daniel, the then vice-president and professor of theology at Douai third.[9] Kitchin was duly appointed in the spring of 1791[10], taking up residence at Douai 30 July [11] when British institutions were already being attacked by revolutionary mobs. In ill health and with no stomach for a fight, he resigned after only three months, and was replaced by John Daniel a fortnight later.[12]
Thus John Daniel was in charge of the college when France declared war on England in February 1793. The consequences of that decision regarding Douai College have been well documented, with an especially long account of its seizure composed by the then vice-president, Rev. Joseph Hodgson, which eventually appeared in 1831.[13a] It is therefore preferable on this occasion to print and comment on something new: a letter dated 16 March 1796 written by Thomas Stout from London to his friend Richard Thompson at Crook Hall.[14]
That the writer seems to speak from first-hand experience need not suiprise us. The letter is dated by Stout 16 March, but the year 1796 has been added in another hand, and it is clearly incorrect, for the addressee, Richard Thompson, who is congratulated upon his entry into holy orders received these, i.e. tonsure, the four minor orders and subdiaconate, 20 December 1794, and was not promoted to the diaconate until 24 September 1796. Without any shadow of doubt the year in question is 1795. This means that as one of the trente-deux, who on their release from prison at Doullens 24 November 1794 were taken back to Douai and lodged in the derelict and cramped quarters of the Irish College yet with relative freedom, Stout had evidently not only surveyed the damage done to the college as other ex-prisoners had done, but made a point of tracing college property which had gone missing. This, of course, is exactly as it should have been, for it was he who had initiated the efforts to hide some of the valuables before the college was seized. In passing, one may add that in view of the earlier dating of the letter it is now clear that on returning to England (2 March) Stout had lost little time writing to his friend Thompson, one of his accomplices in hiding away part of the Douai 'treasure'.
With the true date of Stout's letter in mind, some comments on its contents are in order. First of all, what is written here about the secreted valuables seems to accord well enough with existing accounts. That part hidden outside the town walls was later recovered and sold to meet the expenses incurred by the trente-deux. (One presumes that this particular transaction would give Stout another opportunity to seek the whereabouts of items which had belonged to the college.) Of the two caches secreted within the college itself, some of the refectory plate was unearthed in 1863 as a result of information passed on by the recipient of this letter to one of the English benedictines in 1841, but the church plate was never recovered. Secondly, what Stout says about the relics must surely come from the heart, for had he not been personally responsible tor hiding away others? These were round in 1927 when workmen were excavating the site following the demolition of the college.[15] Thirdly, we learn something more specific about the fate of the books belonging to the college. As early as February 1793 the doors of the two libraries had been sealed, with the result that relatively few Douai books were able to be brought back to England. The other contemporary accounts of the seizure of the college speak of waggon loads of books (including archival material) being taken away to make military cartridges, while several thousand of the more valuable books were incorporated into the library of the university.
Stout is more specific. He says they were taken to the College d' Anchin, the former Jesuit house suppressed in November 1764. With the Jesuit library as a nucleus, the college had in the course of the years become the site of the communal library (i.e. la bibliotheque comunale). It was here in the Anchin College, as Stout calls it, that the books of most of the British establishments confiscated in 1793 were deposited. Many of them disappeared in the course of the continuing upheavals in France, and those which survived to be transferred to the municipal library in Douai were in the main destroyed during the 1944 allied offensive.[16] In the fourth place, the relatively large space which Stout devotes to the subject of vestments is perfectly understandable when we realise that some of the students had risked live and limb to save them.[17]
Next we may try to identify some of those referred to in the letter.[18] John Bell will be considered shortly. Here we need say only that having left Douai in April 1793 he received the tonsure and holy orders within the space of four days at Crook Hall in December 1794 and as a newly ordained priest stayed on at the college as Prefect General, the position formerly occupied by Stout at Douai. The Mr Penswick mentioned here is Thomas, later to become bishop. He was another of the students who shared the secret of the hiding place of some of the Douai valuables. Involved in unloading furniture outside the town walls when the students returned from Esquerchin, he and his friend, Thomas Gillow, escaped (12 October), making their way back to England with great difficulty. Mr. Varley, Stout's uncle, and thus the host to the Douai Seniors, had been ordained at Douai in the 1760's. His ministry was mainly in London, and as an efficient business man he was employed as the bishops' agent for Douai College. Swinburne can be identified as Joseph Swinburn, who was in Rhetoric October 1793 and one of the trente-deux. From what Stout says it is clear that he travelled north as soon as he returned to England and was at Crook Hall by 9 April 1795. He would be ordained priest April 1800.
The Mr Smith mentioned appears to be Rev. Thomas Smith, professor of theology, later bishop, another of the trente-deux. Never in robust health, it is likely that he had returned home to Co. Durham to recuperate after the ordeal of imprisonment. William Coombes, who had previously and rather foolishly written to a royalist newspaper criticising the revolutionary government, was already a priest when he escaped from Douai 16 October 1793. He taught at Old Hall Green (St. Edmund's) until 1808, when he moved to Bath, and thence to Shepton Mallet. The last year of his life was spent in retirement at Downside. Cook, is Thomas Cook, a first year theology student in October 1792. He was already back in England by October 1793 and continued his studies at Old Hall Green. He did not proceed to the priesthood. John Law left Douai 13 October 1793 in third year theology and went to Old Hall Green where he was ordained priest eight months later. He stayed there as Procurator. William Veal, a Syntaxian, was one of several who made good their escape from Doullens 16 January 1794. He did not proceed to the priesthood. Robert Freemont, a second year theology student in October 1792 left Douai 5 August 1793 and continued with his studies at Old Hall Green. He was not ordained either. Timothy Duggan had come to Douai from the Irish College 230 May 1791. In October 1792 he was in second year philosophy and left 21 January 1793, another student who did not proceed to the priesthood. Matthew Gibson left Douai in second year philosophy 5 May 1792.I have not been able to find anything further about him.
To conclude this analysis of what is on the whole a valuable new source of information about the end of Douai College, it ought to be said that the marble tabernacle from the college chapel was not broken to pieces as hearsay had it, but somehow saved and later installed on the altar of the north transept of the chapel of the English Recollects which after the Concordat was enlarged and made a substitute for the parish church of St. Jacques (situated in the square facing the English College), which was sold and pulled down in 1799.[19]
Stout's letter reveals his great love for the college as well as giving us a new link with the events which followed its closure. Meanwhile, back in England, the two bishops most interested in the fate of the college, William Gibson in the north and John Douglass in the south, knew they ought to be anticipating the needs of the students on their return to England[20] The ensuing negotiations, with claims and counter-claims as to a suitable site, have been narrated at length more than once.[21] For the sake of continuity I give the briefest of outlines here. Most of the Douai students were collected together at Old Hall Green Academy in Hertfordshire, along established lay school directed at the time by Rev. John Potier, which Bishop Douglass on 16 November 1793 opened as a replacement for Douai. This became St. Edmund's College. Convenient it was meant to be, inconvenient it soon became. Indeed, there was no room for an additional eleven Douai students when they arrived in London at the end of January 1794 after their escape from Doullens. Bishop Douglass was all tor sending them home, but as five belonged to the north, Bishop Gibson ordered them to proceed to a lay school at Tudhoe in Co. Durham founded by Rev. Arthur Storey about 1781. With still more students to arrive back from France, the bishop looked for another site, and after a short period at Pontop Hall, Crook Hall came into being, 15 October 1794, under the presidency of Rev. Thomas Eyre, assisted by the future historian John Lingard. By the end of that year the college housed twenty-eight seniors and students. No doubt much more will be said about this on the occasion of its second centenary. Fourteen years later it was replaced by an entirely new building at Ushaw, due in large part to the efforts of William Gibson, who was given more than was perhaps his due in a later inscription placed above his grave in the Ushaw cemetery[22]:
Collegii Anglorum Duaceni
Hic apud Ushaw Redivivi
Fundator Strenuus
That Bishop Gibson made such strenuous efforts to resettle his students from Douai should not surprise us. He was a man of great energy, but he had also been in reality the last effective president of the college and it was his great desire to see Douai College continued on English soil. Should there be an equestrian equivalent of a peripatetic, it would describe him perfectly, travelling long days the length and breadth of the vast territory under his jurisdiction looking for suitable places where the training of his priests would be ensured according to the constitutions of the college over which he had presided for nine years.
To conclude this review of William Gibson's work to resettle his students in England, this is a fitting occasion on which to add another page to the chapters that have already been written on the subject.
Tudhoe, Pontop and Crook Hall are recognised precursors of the purpose built college begun at Ushaw in 1804 on land purchased from the Smythe family of Acton Burnell. To them we should add a house in York.[23]
Crook Hall followed Douai College in the practice of registering the number of superiors and students at the beginning of each academic year, 1 October. A comparison of the last Douai lists of students in theology with the first lists at Crook Hall reveals a number of discrepancies. To explain them, it is necessary to study in more detail the movements of these students as they left Douai.[24] Three of them went directly to Old Hall Green when they escaped in October 1793, viz. Charles Saul, in second year, and Edward Monk and Richard Thompson in first year. They later continued their studies at Crook Hall, though Monk proceeded no farther than the subdiaconate. Of the other students James Lancaster, a deacon and professor of music, escaped 12 October and was ordained priest at York in the December of that year. John Fletcher, a fourth year subdeacon, after a short stay at St. Gregory's, Paris, went off to St. Omers 26 April 1791, was captured there with staff and students and did not return to England until March 1795. He was ordained at York 13 (18 ?) April of that year. John Yates, a deacon and professor of first class rudiments in 1791, left Douai 15 November of that year for St Omers, was likewise incarcerated until March 1795, and on his release also ordained 18 April. John Lingard (a native of Winchester who chose to work in northern England) entered second year theology October 1792, but returned to England February 1793. For a time he was tutor to the son of Lord Stourton but was soon called to Tudhoe, thence to Pontop and Crook Hall, where he received his minor orders and subdiaconate 20 December 1794 and was ordained priest at York 18 April 1795. John Woodcock entered fourth year theology at the beginning of October 1792, and left within a month. He was ordained at York December 1793.
John Bell, mentioned previously, left Douai as a second year student April 1793, became tutor to the Silvertop boys at Minsteracres in Northumberland until Crook Hall came into being, and there he received his minor orders and subdiaconate 20 December 1794, his diaconate two days later and his priesthood the day after that. James Worswick who had left Douai 12 October 1793 in fourth year theology received his minor orders and subdiaconate at York in December 1793, and a year later, 20 December 1794 was ordained deacon at Crook Hall, though never a student there. He too was ordained priest at York 18 April 1795. Thomas Gillow who was in first year theology in 1793 escaped (with Thomas Penswick a second year philosopher) a few days later (12 October). He received his minor orders and subdiaconate at Crook Hall 20 December 1794, was promoted deacon 24 September 1796 and ordained priest 1 April 1797. Robert Blacoe was in fourth year theology and a subdeacon when he evaded his captors 24 November 1793, severely injuring himself as he jumped from the town walls. Ordained deacon at Crook Hall 22 December 1794 and raised to the priesthood the following day, he was promptly dispatched to teach at Tudhoe Academy.
Two other Douai divines complete our list. William Croskell, a deacon and professor in 1793, was one of the unfortunate trente-deux detained in France, returning to England 2 March 1795. He proceeded to Crook Hall and from there went to York for ordination to the priesthood 18 April 1795. Thomas Berry in thiixi year theology? (and subdeacon) in October 1792, does not feature on the 1793 list but reappears on the list compiled at Doullens in 1794, and is therefore to be classed as one of the trente-deux. On his return to England he seems to have needed a period of recuperation before entering Crook Hall September 1796. There he received his diaconate 17 December and was ordained priest 1 April 1797.
This close and unavoidable scrutiny of the available sources demonstrates that although we can account for the whereabouts of the majority of the northern students from leaving Douai until they were ordained (or as in the case of Edward Monk did not proceed to the priesthood), there are exceptions. Where were James Lancaster and John Woodcock for a short while in the autumn of 1793, Thomas Gillow from that time until his subdiaconate at Crook Hall in December 1794, Robert Blacoe for the year December 1793-4, and James Worswick between October 1793 and his priestly ordination in 1795?
As in the case of Thomas Stout's letter about Douai affairs, the answer lies ironically enough in not the attics of either of the sister colleges St. Edmund's and Ushaw but among the Upholland College papers, and more particularly in the correspondence of Robert Banister of Mowbreck, Lanes, and his nephew Henry Rutter (vere Banister), the priest at Minsteracres. Banister writes to his nephew on 19 December 1793:
Robert Banister, a distinguished alumnus of Douai, professor of theology there earlier in the century, occupies an important place in the history of the Northern Vicariate. Almost always at loggerheads with William Gibson whether as president of Douai or northern bishop, he was on this occasion obviously reluctant to move to York. In fact, he never did move there, and it was presumably left to Rev. John Gillow, also a distinguished alumnus of Douai and the missioner at York from 1791 (and later president of Ushaw), to teach this Douai remnant. Not that his task could have been particularly onerous, for John Woodcock and James Lancaster were ordained priests by the end of the year, Thomas Gillow soon went off to Old Hall Green (there to be the ring leader of the troublemakers, so we are led to believe), John Rickaby (not mentioned earlier because he was a philosopher not a theologian) went to Tudhoe by the spring of 1794, Robert Blacoe kept his appointment with Banister at Mowbreck, and John Bell went straight to Crook Hall from Minsteracres. That leaves only James Worswick, who apparently stayed on at York until his ordination there in 1795. If that is the case, the likelihood is that he lodged with Mr. Gillow, as he was a relative of Gillow on his mother's side.
At first sight it looks as though Bishop Gibson had acted rather impulsively in gathering some of his flock together at York. But there maybe a simple explanation. We have seen already how pressing the need was to find somewhere to settle the students leaving Douai in haste. Close to the minster, Little Blake Street (no longer in existence, being a casualty of the mid 19th century city planners) easily came to the bishop's mind, for there lived not only John Gillow but the bishop himself, or more accurately there he had a residence, for his multifarious activities left him little time to reside anywhere for long. From his correspondence we can glean that he was staying in Little Blake Street, York, from December 1791. By the middle of March 1792 he had moved in, so to speak, for there is in existence a long inventory compiled by Rev. Thomas Eyre of the goods (mainly books) dispatched to York on the bishop's behalf. It was a task that needled Eyre, who pointedly wrote at the top of the first page 'R.R. Gibson took with him to York the best saddle.'[26] The bishop had a house there at least until 1797[27]. Was it the one contiguous to Gillow's? We have as yet no means of telling, but such an attractive theory would help to explain why the bishop was able to send his students there so precipitously and for such a short time.[28]
Speculation apart, sufficient evidence has now come to light to show that the city of York did play some small part, hitherto unsuspected, in Bishop Gibson's determination to provide his students with continuity in their preparation for the priesthood. It was a short-lived experiment, overtaken by events. Nevertheless, it does mean that from now on the name of Little Blake Street, York is to be added to those other precursors of Ushaw, Tudhoe, Pontop Hall and Crook Hall which housed the north's last Douai students, thereby contributing an unexpectedly new page in the history of the closure of the British religious institutions in France two hundred years ago.