Oh for the foresight to have started these posts a year ago today.
Still, here we are, on the first day of 2015 aptly recording excerpts from the 1915 "Catholic Who's Who & Year Book" (Burns & Oates; Edited by Sir F. C. Burnand; 3/6 NET) – but naturally recounting aspects from 1914, as per the publication itself.
Why are we doing this? Well, simply because we're blessed with immediate access to these treasured Year Book volumes – and it is not only good to breathe a little digital-life back into such rare titles, but also, we hope, it will prove a small web-service for those interested in the Catholic history and heritage of our lands over the last century. Also, what more fitting time to start this series than during these years commemorating the centenary of World War I (an atrocity which, inevitably, features prominently in the Catholic Who's Who & Year Book volumes of that period)? Moreover, we would hope that as we episodically highlight the names of those who populated our Catholic sanctuaries and pews 100 years ago that prayers will be offered aplenty for their souls.
So, without further ado, verbatim, we start from the first line of the first entry of the 1915 Year Book's annual diary section entitled "The Catholic Year" looking back on 1914:
{styled as per the original; however any images, (bracketed Christian name insertions), cross-reference annotations [*], and subject breaks [–], and obviously links, have been inserted by ourselves}
(Pg 516: JANUARY 1914)
Statistics compiled by the Rev. James Hughes, show that the diocese of Liverpool stands highest in England in its Catholic population with 371,000, Salford second with 295,000, and Westminster third with 256,000. The conversions in Liverpool diocese during 1913 are computed at 1,110.
The diocese of Northampton, however, claims the primacy in one relative aspect, as witness a statement from its Bishop (Rt Rev. Frederick William Keating - pictured below) [*]: "Taking the total number of baptisms in the thirteen dioceses which make returns under this head, the percentage of converts is as follows: Menevia and Newport, 6 per cent [**]; Middlesbrough, 6.5 per cent; Liverpool, 7 per cent; Hexham, 10.4 per cent[***]; Shrewsbury, 10.6 per cent; Leeds, 11.4 per cent; Westminster, 13 per cent; Southwark, 14.6 per cent; Portsmouth, 18 per cent; Clifton, 23 per cent; Plymouth 24 per cent; Northampton, over 34 per cent."
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| Rt Rev. Frederick William Keating, when Bishop of Northampton (1908-21) |
The Simla Times, a new Catholic and General Indian newspaper, is issued under the auspices of the Archbishop of Simla.
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In Westminster Cathedral Hall is produced the Coventry Nativity Play, by Mr Patrick Kirwan and the Catholic Stage Guild.
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At their annual Conference, held at Leeds under the Presidency of Mr J. P. Donovan, Catholic teachers demand the frank recognition of denominational schools and protest against the making of Cowper-Templeism [****] the normal religion of the child. The Conference had for meeting-place a new and perfectly equipped school, fulfilling every Government requirement save the substitution of Cowper-Temple for Catholic teaching; its cost proving one item of the £60,000 spent on Secondary Schools Buildings by the Catholics of Leeds in the past ten years.
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[*] Bishop Keating is, naturally, a figure of great interest for Liverpolitanus given that, following his considerable (as signalled) successes in Northampton Diocese, he then became Archbishop of Liverpool from 1921-28 (it is noteworthy that His Lordship felt the need in 1914 to draw specific attention to the conversion statistics in the diocese that he had Shepherded for seven years - alas we do not have the context in which he made his statement...although it won't prevent us from trying to find it!). Accordingly, we will be featuring future posts about Bishop/Archbishop Keating, as we believe that he is an oft-overlooked figure in Liverpool archdiocesan history.
[**] The verbatim reference is interesting, from an historical aspect and regarding the cited order i.e. "Menevia and Newport", for any correct coupling should really have been "Newport and Menevia". It would seem that it is not a Year Book error and it is reasonable to trust that Bishop Keating's statement was recounted faithfully. However, the titular twinning of those Welsh territories had formally ceased some two decades earlier when the "Diocese of Newport and Menevia" split into two, with only the formerly cited region retaining formal prominence, at that stage anyway. The unravelling of Welsh diocesan history is a complex affair. Roughly, though, following the 1850 Papal Bull Universalis Ecclesiae which enabled the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales, the latter was split between the Diocese of Shrewsbury (covering Wales' north and parts of north-west England) and the Diocese of Newport and Menevia (covering all, and only, Wales' south). This unsatisfactory drawing of the Welsh Catholic map was revised in 1895, marking the end of the "Newport and Menevia" twinning, and the disappearance of the latter name for three years (though a later irony would see the Menevia name return to prominence and that of Newport titularly disappear for good). Thus, four of Wales' southern districts became the "Diocese of Newport" from 1895 until 1916, whilst the remainder of the country – to the north and the boundaries with the English Diocese of Shrewsbury – became "The Vicariate of Wales". But a third reworking followed just three years later, when the Vicariate regions were restyled as the "Diocese of Menevia" (which had its pro-Cathedral in Wrexham - which later became a titular diocese in its own right as recently as 1987). So when Bishop Keating made his statement, in 1914, concerning the comparisons of conversion rates, the notion of "Newport and Menevia" being a twin-entity had long ceased. It is telling, though, that even when combined for statistical convenience (possibly the reason for His Lordship's apparently anachronistic reference), the whole country of Wales was still 0.5 per cent behind the English diocese with the fewest conversion rates per recorded baptisms: i.e. Newport/Menevia at 6 per cent, then the Diocese of Middlesbrough with 6.5 per cent. The citation holds a significant historical note, however, for it was only a further 13 months after the publication of the 1915 Year Book that the Diocese of Newport was re-titled as the Archdiocese of Cardiff - with its cathedral in the Welsh capital city of the same name (thus a fourth re-working of the Welsh Catholic map of Wales in 65 years). It was then that the place name "Newport" fell from the Welsh titular map.
[***] Another seeming anachronism, for the "Diocese of Hexham" – as also formed in 1850 with the other English and Welsh Catholic territories (see [**] above) – only lasted 11 years until it became the combined "Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle" in 1861.
[****] (George Bernard Shaw on "Cowper-Templeism")
More will come from the January entry in "The Catholic Year - 1914" in a later post on Liverpolitanus.
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It's a fascinating – but tremendously sobering – read is the Catholic Who's Who & Year Book of 1915, for the ever darkening dawn of World War I naturally overshadows many of its pages. Its regular Necrology stops on Pg 499 at November 21st, 1914 (recording the death of Sir Daniel Hegarty – first Lord Mayor of Cork, aged 76) which, presumably, was the print deadline. There then comes a stingingly-bitter single page turn. For on Pg 500 appears an obituary Roll of Honour – recorded in chronological order of death – and its first entry is chilling:
WILFRID HUMPHREY COGHLAN, Lieut R.F.A.,
younger s. of Col. Coghlan, C.B., D.L., of Headingley,
Leeds; at the Battle of Mons, Aug. 23 – aged 24.
The Roll finishes but three pages later, after "only" 56 names – all deaths from the opening months of World War I – have been recorded. The Editor, Sir Francis Cowley Burnand, and his team of compilers must surely have immediately intuited to allocate more than three pages for the 1916 edition. In a further post, soon, we will record Sir Francis' very pointed preface to the 1915 edition which, in addition to commenting on the abyss of war that Europe had fallen into in the final months of 1914, also remarks upon the deeply felt death of H.H. Pope Pius X in late August of that year, indeed mere weeks after the fateful decision to plunge a continent, and ultimately the world, into a conflict the likes of which had never been seen before. Although the medical citation for the cause of His Holiness' death was the rapid onset of pneumonia, it was widely attested to by many of those close to him that his systematic well-being had all but collapsed, through sheer heartbreak, in the final weeks of his holy life as he found himself powerless to prevent both the onset of the atrocity – and the collapse, which it is strongly suggested that he prophetically and mysteriously foresaw, of European and world civilisation as was known (a demonic process still surely unfolding with pernicious evil 100 years on in 2015). Indeed, if it is generally accepted that The Great war started on July 28th, 1914, with the formal declaration of war by Austria-Hungary on Serbia, and that the first fatality was that of the German, Lieut. Albert Otto Walter Mayer, on August 2, 1914, it could be argued – and certainly from our Catholic view-point it is – that the death of Pope Pius, just 18 days later, was also among that first handful of deaths claimed either directly or indirectly by the atrocities.
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| H.H. Pope Saint Pius X on his deathbed |
The final entry for the Roll of Honour of 1914 is:
GEOFFREY E. R. BARTLETT, Midshipman R.N.,
elder s. of Edward N. N. Bartlett, of St Margaret's
Cottage, Tylers Green, Bucks, and grandson of
Sir Philip Rose, Bt.; lost by the blowing up of
HMS Bulwark off Sheerness, Nov. 26 – aged 19.
Please do e-mail Liverpolitanus (see home page) should you require information about any entries in the Year Book for 1915 (or later volumes). We will strive to assist all requests – and hopefully post details of such correspondence if appropriate, and of course as discreetly as fits.
In any case, we will seek to publish all of the names from 1915 Roll of Honour in fairly short course.
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Away from the impending doom, and concerning the regular entries of the Year Book 1915, they begin with one MISS ALICE ABADAM, of South Wales. Hailing from the Abadams of Middleton Hall, South Wales, we note that she was listed as residing in London, and as
President of the Norwood and District Women's Suffrage Society;
a speaker for the N.U. of Women's Suffrage Societies; contributor
to the Crucible and other periodicals. Author of The Fall and Rise of Women's Rights.
Hmm. As said already, it's certainly a fascinating read is the Year Book of 1915!
Those regular entries finish many hundreds of pages later with that of FRANCIS M. de-ZULUETA, S.J., (incidentally one of three entries under the name de-Zulueta) who is listed as resident at Mount St Mary's, Chesterfield. Excerpted from his entry is that he was
... author of Letters on Christian Doctrine, Notes on Daily Communion,
Ministry of Daily Communion, Worship of the Sacred Heart, etc., composer of church music including evening services, Vespers, short Masses and motets.
So there it is. From the, shall we say, clearly feminist-leaning Miss Abadam, to the prayerfully composed Fr de-Zulueta, the Year Book provides a veritable A-Z insight into the gamut of the contrasting Catholic world that prevailed in England and Wales in 1914.
And to think that the late Pope Pius had warned about Modernism!
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Please pray for – and indeed to, as the case may be! – all the souls of those named in the above post.
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Some posts shortly to come on Liverpolitanus:
• Nativity, Midnight Mass, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Dec. 25th, 2014, celebrated by Most Rev. Malcolm McMahon, Archbishop of Liverpool. Certain observations.
• Full list of names in the Roll of Honour from the Catholic Who's Who & Year Book 1915
• Full list of illustrations from the Catholic Who's Who & Year Book 1915
• Further excerpt from the entry for January recording "The Catholic Year" 1914
