(1808 - 1829)

In 1808 the Catholic Board was established to press the Catholic case for emancipation. Founder members among the Thames Valley gentry included Michael Blount of Mapledurham, his son Michael Henry Blount, Thomas Stonor, and James Weld, who soon afterwards inherited Britwell House.

All four Vicars Apostolic were members. The Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District, whose territory included Oxfordshire, was Bishop John Milner. He was opposed to lay committees and their aristocratic nationalistic members. Even the Pope described him as 'a firebrand', but he had a strong following among the rising Catholic middle class. He was twice a baptismal sponsor for the Whebles of Woodley Lodge, in 1820 and 1824.

In 1810 the Catholic Board approved the principle of a state veto of candidates for Catholic bishoprics much to Bishop Milner's disgust. Three years later he was expelled from the board because of his refusal to compromise on the grounds for emancipation.

The year the Catholic Board was established the parson of Britwell Salome noted the winter evening activities of a Catholic labourer. The man, whose name was Campbell, taught 'writing and accounts' to about thirteen local pupils, but never interfered 'with the religious principles of his Scholars'.

About two years later a room in the Hermitage at Clewer Green, Windsor was in use as a Catholic chapel, thus laying the foundation for the present Catholic parish of St Edward. The house belonged to John Riley whose French chaplain lived at the Hope Inn in Frogmore Road. This was probably Fr Noel Duclos of Evreux, who taught French at Eton College from 1802 until 1826 or later.

Not far away at Warfield (5 miles SW of Windsor) another French priest, Fr Francois Dubois of Laon had administered baptism in 1800 and 1801. There had been a Catholic mission or chaplaincy at Warfield for at least eight years from 1776, and Catholics are said to have had their own burial ground at Wick Hill. Little else is known and it seems that Mass was no longer being said regularly at Warfield by this time.

Sir John Throckmorton, keen though he was on putting the lay case for Catholic emancipation, had other interests. As a proud sheep farmer he wagered 1,000 guineas (= £20,000 today) that, by sunset of the longest day, he would wear a coat made from wool which until that sunrise had been on his sheep.

The wager was accepted and on 25 June 1811 the task began. At 5 o'clock in the morning Sir John handed two Southdown sheep to Mr Coxeter, the miller at Greenham Mills near Newbury. The sheep were then shorn, the wool sorted and spun, and the yarn spooled, warped, loomed and woven. The resultant cloth was then burred, milled, rowed, dyed, dried, sheared and pressed to produce a hunting Kersey in 'the admired dark Wellington colour'; a shade of brown which, today at least, has a somewhat stripy appearance.

Production of the cloth took eleven hours. It was then passed to Isaac White the tailor. He and his team completed the coat in two hours and twenty minutes, with plenty of time in hand.

An estimated 5,000 people witnessed the event. They were sustained with 120 gallons of strong beer and two roasted sheep, the donors of the wool used for the coat.

That evening Sir John Throckmorton wore the coat at the Pelican Inn, Speenhamland (1 mile W. of Newbury). About forty gentlemen dined with him on a meal provided by the miller. The record stood for more than a century. Forty years later the Throckmorton Coat was displayed at the Great Exhibition. Today it is at the Throckmortons' Warwickshire residence, Coughton Court, near Alcester.

The family sold Buckland House in 1908 to the Wellesley family. In 1963 it became an independent college called University Hall. Plans were afoot in 1991 to convert it into a hotel.

Lady Anastasia Mannock (née Browne) lived at Badgemore near Henley-on-Thames from about 1812 to 1814. She appears to have been a niece of Sir Thomas Moore, last male of the Fawley line. She employed as her chaplain Fr Francois d'Allard of Bayeaux, who lived seven miles away at Fingest House on the eastern edge of the Stonor estate.

Lady Mannock died at Windsor in the spring of 1814. (Click here for a transcript of her will.) The poor priest had great difficulty recovering his salary and travelling expenses from her solicitors. She gave £800 (= £15,000 today) to help fund the mission at Poole, Dorset. This was also supported by Thomas Simeon Weld, owner of Britwell House, who had died fourteen years earlier.

Meanwhile Finch's Buildings in Hosier Street, Reading continued to serve as a mission centre and presbytery (priests' house) for four or five French priests from the dioceses of Rouen and Séez. Their leader was Fr Jean Baptiste Longuet, a farmer's son from Ussy. His elder brother Louis was martyred in the French Revolution.

Fr Longuet was ordained in England and was working in Reading by the autumn of 1802. Over the next nine years he and his colleagues saved £300 (= £5,600 today) which they earned by giving French lessons. With this money a plot of land was bought in Vastern Road, behind the old site of Reading School. There Fr Longuet built the first Catholic church in Reading since the Reformation, aptly named the chapel of the Resurrection.

The church stood on the site now occupied by the Rising Sun public house. The project was completed little more than a year after it was approved by Bishop William Poynter, the Vicar Apostolic of the London District. He consecrated the chapel in 1812.

Once again the church furniture from Whiteknights was reused, despite a quarrel over the issue with Elizabeth Smart and her sister. The new chapel soon served a congregation of more than 170, consisting of Reading's few native Catholics, recent converts, French emigrés and Italian traders.

Thomas Simeon Weld the younger died in 1810 at Stonyhurst, Lancashire. His death induced the Poor Clares of Britwell House to look around for a more permanent home. Three years later the abbess, chaplain and a few nuns moved to Coxside near Portsmouth, where they were later joined by the rest of the community. They later returned to France then moved to Scorton in Yorkshire before settling in Darlington, County Durham. It was there that the last of the Britwell nuns died in 1892, aged ninety-seven.

James Weld, seventh son of Thomas Simeon Weld, inherited Britwell House. After the nuns left he made it his home. He lived at Britwell for nineteen years and several of his children were born there. In 1832 the Welds sold the house and it passed out of Catholic ownership.

In 1814 twenty-three year old Maria Teresa Metcalfe of Bath married Charles Eyston, a year her senior, at St Mary's Catholic chapel, Queen's Square, Bath. Maria's mother was a Throckmorton and her paternal grandmother was Bridget More, a descendant of Sir Thomas More. Through Maria Metcalfe the Eystons of East Hendred derive their descent from Sir Thomas More. It was also through her that they acquired his timber and silver tankard, which is kept at Hendred House.

Charles and Maria Eyston's son Charles married Agnes Mary Blount of Mapledurham. The male line of the Blounts of Mapledurham became extinct in 1943 and Mapledurham thereby became an Eyston property. The present owner of Mapledurham House, John Joseph Eyston, is Charles and Maria Eyston's great great grandson.

One afternoon in February 1817, six years after completion of Reading's the chapel of the Resurrection, Fr Longuet left a house at Wallingford. He had been teaching French to the children and had just been paid several months' tuition fees. After visiting friends at Pangbourne he rode through the evening along the Oxford Road towards Reading. It seems that someone in the darkness ahead of him knew about the money. Near where the road meets Norcot Hill, Fr Longuet was robbed and murdered. He was only two and a half miles from home.

At that time Norcot Junction was in the country. Fr Longuet's horribly gashed body was not found until the postman passed along the road the following morning. The priest's horse was nearby, grazing by the Thames.

This murder caused great embarrassment to the authorities because the French exiled priests were in England under the Prince Regent's protection. The government therefore offered a large reward for the capture of the murderer. But, even though a Bow Street detective was sent from London to help the local constabulary, their efforts were in vain. The murderer, the 'son of a good family', confessed shortly before his death.

Fr Longuet was buried in the chapel of the Resurrection. His remains were transferred to St James's church in the ruins of Reading Abbey when it replaced the chapel in 1841. There is a small brass plate to his memory in the altar step of the church. His body is buried at the entrance to the sanctuary.

Fr Longuet was not the only French priest to suffer a violent death in the Reading area. Nineteen years earlier, in 1798, Fr Pierre Nourry of Coutance was found dead in the mill stream near Caversham Lock. He was probably the 'poor emigré priest' thrown into the Thames by three young men. The drowning priest is said to have asked God for the conversion of his assailants, one of whom became a Catholic on his deathbed.

After Fr Longuet's death Fr Webster of Mapledurham helped the two remaining French priests at the chapel of the Resurrection. Fr Jean Godquin of Rouen died the following year, but his colleague from the same diocese, Fr Jean Gondré, who had earlier served the Catholics of East Hendred, lived for another nine years.

Although it was no longer necessary to travel to the Continent for a good Catholic secondary education, Catholics were still prevented from attending Oxford University (and remained so until the late nineteenth century). In 1817 therefore, twenty year old Thomas Stonor went to the English Seminary at Paris to study for a degree. While there he hunted with a party that included Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. The Iron Duke was an Anglo-Irish Protestant who had been given £600,000 (= £12m today) by the state for his role in the defeat of Napoleon. With part of this reward the Duke had recently bought Stratfield Saye House (7 miles S. of Reading). He was to become a crucial figure in the struggle for Catholic emancipation.

In 1819 Fr Pierre Senechal died at Oxford. He and Fr Pierre Bertin, both of Amiens, taught French in Oxford for many years, though neither was formally attached to the University. Fr Senechal also taught Latin and Italian. Although by this time there were some Catholic graveyards, their use was technically illegal until the Burial Act of 1852. Fr Senechal was therefore buried at the Anglican church of St Clement, Oxford. At that time the church stood to the east of Magdalen Bridge. It was rebuilt in Marston Road in 1828, at which time John Henry Newman was the curate.

Fr Charles Leslie, the Jesuit founder of the chapel of St Ignatius in the St Clement's district of Oxford, had died in 1806, greatly respected by many at the University. He is said to have been the inspiration for the character Mr Keith in J. G. Lockhart's 1823 novel 'Reginald Dalton'. By 1818 the priest at St Ignatius was Fr Robert Newsham, another Jesuit. He established a school in the presbytery for the sons of gentlemen, and in 1849 transferred it to Dorchester-on-Thames.

The chapel of St Ignatius was the only Catholic church in Oxford until 1873 when St Aloysius's in the Woodstock Road opened. It was there in 1845 that Newman attended his first public Mass after converting to Catholicism. St Ignatius's, 'a solemn and handsome edifice decorated in a style of elegant simplicity', closed in 1911. It was replaced by the church of SS Edmund & Frideswide in Iffley Road. However, the former chapel still exists and is now used as offices.

The Prince Regent became George IV in 1820. That year Fr Francis Bowland was appointed to replace the murdered Fr Longuet. Fr Bowland is said to have been Reading's first English secular priest since the Reformation. In the recent past he had worked at Stonor. He was to serve the Catholics of Reading for seventeen years.

In 1821 William Davey of Dorchester, then sixty-one years old, was presented with a 'handsome inscribed goblet' by the Oxfordshire Agricultural Society, of which he was a founder. He farmed 320 acres and kept 600 sheep. His agricultural techniques were so advanced that George III ('Farmer George') is supposed to have inspected the Davey holdings in person.

Arthur Young's book 'Agriculture in Oxfordshire' had described William Davey's ploughing as 'the neatest and truest ... I anywhere viewed'. Young described William Davey as 'one of the most intelligent farmers in the county'. William Davey obviously took after his father, who had been regarded as one of the most painstaking and progressive farmers in Oxfordshire.

William Davey's wife was Sarah Haskey whose family were stewards to the Stonors for two or three generations. In 1811 William had laid the first stone of the present Dorchester Bridge, an indication of the esteem in which his family was held.

When William Davey died in 1831 one of his five sons, George, continued the farming tradition. In 1849 another son, John, paid for the building of St Birinus's Catholic church, opposite Dorchester Abbey.

In 1821 the eighth Earl of Fingall put forward legislation for Catholic emancipation. This included a veto for the government on nominees for Catholic bishoprics and a modification to the Oath of Supremacy. Bishop Milner, Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District, (who had been a baptismal sponsor to the Whebles at Woodley Lodge the previous year) opposed the bill. However, the Vatican and Bishop Poynter of the London District supported it with reservations. The bill was subsequently passed by the House of Commons but rejected by the Lords.

Two years later, in 1823, the clergy-dominated middle class Catholic Association was established. Its purpose was to counter the influence of the old Catholic gentry and nobility.

In 1825 another emancipation bill was proposed, this time by Sir Francis Burdett. It had been drawn up by the Irish lawyer Daniel O'Connell without consulting English Catholics. Again, Bishop Milner opposed it, Bishop Poynter supported it with reservations, the Commons passed it and the Lords threw it out. Bishop Milner died the following year.

In 1828 the Test Act and the Corporation Act were repealed, to the benefit of all non-Anglicans. The same year Daniel O'Connell was elected Member of Parliament for County Clare. Thomas Stonor was one of his proposers. But as a Catholic, O'Connell could not take his seat in Parliament.

The Duke of Wellington was now Prime Minister. He and Home Secretary Robert Peel feared that civil war might break out in Ireland if Catholic emancipation were further delayed. Until then the King had opposed the restoration of Catholic civil rights. He now changed his mind and allowed a new bill to proceed. It was introduced in January 1829.

The resultant Catholic Emancipation Act prescribed a new parliamentary oath denying the Pope any non-spiritual jurisdiction and undertaking not to subvert the position of the Anglican Church. Catholic priests were forbidden to be Members of Parliament. Catholic bishops were not to use titles adopted since the Reformation by Anglican bishops. Catholic clergy were not to officiate except in Catholic places of worship. But there was to be no state veto on nominations for Catholic bishoprics.

Catholics could now belong to corporations. Most public office was open to them, apart from that of Lord Chancellor, Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland. These restrictions still apply and the Royal Marriage Act continues to forbid the Royal Family to marry Catholics, a proscription that applies to no other religious denomination.

The new legislation was passed quickly, without consultation or negotiation with the English Catholics. Nonetheless, all four Vicars Apostolic approved the new parliamentary oath. Many anti-Catholic laws remained, but they were ineffective and no serious attempt was made to enforce them.

During the previous twenty years there had been few demonstrations against the campaign for Catholic emancipation. But at least two Anglican parishes in Oxford petitioned against the 1829 act, as did Oxford city council.

Two weeks after the act was passed Daniel O'Connell, 'the Liberator' became godfather to James Wheble's youngest son at Woodley Lodge.

The leading Catholic families of the Thames Valley rapidly moved back into the public life from which they had so long been barred. Sir Robert Throckmorton of Buckland became Member of Parliament for Berkshire in 1831 and Sheriff of the county for 1843. Charles Eyston of East Hendred became Sheriff of Berkshire for 1831, and the following year Michael Henry Blount of Mapledurham became High Sheriff of Oxfordshire. In 1833 Thomas Stonor was elected Member of Parliament for Oxford and three years later he became High Sheriff of Oxfordshire. He was a friend of Lord Gladstone and a founder of the Henley Royal Regatta. He also instigated an annual meeting of the Royal Buckhounds at Stonor, became the third Lord Camoys and was Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria under five Liberal administrations.

Although the Earl of Fingall's family had left Berkshire in the previous century, in 1831 the eighth earl became Baron Woolhampton of Woolhampton Lodge. Six years later James Wheble became Sheriff of Berkshire. In 1841 Charles Scott-Murray of Medmenham became Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire and eleven years later he was High Sheriff of the county.

Thereafter there was a slow but steady growth of Catholicism, bolstered by immigration from Ireland and by conversions from the Anglican Oxford Movement. That growth continued well into the twentieth century and today about one in ten of Thames Valley people are baptised Catholics.