Victorian Church and Society

  The Act that led to some level of Catholic Relief in England was not a licence for all Roman Catholic activity in this country. The Act still envisioned the suppression of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and other religious orders and at the time there were only fifty four priests in the Jesuit order in England. In 1838 the Roman Catholic weekly periodical The Tablet was initiated with a Quaker, Frederick Lucas as its editor. This publication soon developed into an influential force within the Roman Catholic Church in England. Closely linked with this, an unknown Subscriber to the Tablet, writing from an address close to the Jesuit college, Stonyhurst sent a letter to the Jesuit Provincial who lived in Worcester with a donation of seven hundred pounds and a covering note which read: To a subscription towards building a church in London to be dedicated to the Ever Immaculate Blessed Virgin and to be called “The Immaculate Conception”. Offer up with heart and soul every S...

  On September 1 st 1846 the opening of St. Giles’ Church Cheadle took place after five years of building and interior design work by Pugin. The Earl of Shrewsbury whose money had largely funded the project was delighted. He thought it would “improve the taste of young England” and could often be found showing people around. George Gilbert Scott was impressed and the Earl of Shrewsbury commented about his reaction “ the stencilling absolutely made the water run down both sides of his mouth”. St. Giles Church was designed by Pugin to be entirely English in style and was symmetrical. This style no longer reflected his thinking at the time but it was an example of what became known as “Puginism”. The Church cost over thirty thousand pounds and was a full blown work of high romantic art. In it Pugin’s own religious and aesthetic ideals were equally fulfilled. Many notable guests attended the consecration including John Henry Newman, a recent convert from the Anglican to the Rom...

  As a young man Augustus Pugin converted to Roman Catholicism and in 1836 published “Contrasts” in which he compares architecture and interior furnishings in Protestant and Roman Catholic settings. One of his drawings illustrates “a faithful picture of Protestant desecration and neglect” and features a defaced altar screen, below which stands an altar table that Pugin describes as a “cheap and ugly table”. In contrast a sketch of an altar and associated furnishings in a Roman Catholic setting is described as “more suited to a fashionable boudoir that to an altar for sacrifice.” Pugin’s aim was to recapture the Gothic style in the buildings and furnishings he designed. An early commission was Scarisbrick Hall, close to Ormskirk in Lancashire. Charles Scarisbrick initially wanted a garden seat and chimney piece, but the young and enthusiastic Pugin set about trying to rebuild the entire property. Pugin produced for Scarisbrick a number of rooms central to the house: the Great...