English Roman Catholic parish histories

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After the Reformation the Roman Catholic Church in England went underground to avoid persecution. During this time Catholic worship centred mainly on the estates of aristocratic Recusant families who refused to conform to the Church of England. Many later parishes would grow out of the private chapels of these families.

During the eighteenth century there was a gradual liberalisation of the anti-Catholic laws and so a slow growth of missions to various towns, which took on permanent form and became the nucleus of a number of Catholic parishes. In the nineteenth century there was a large influx of Irish immigrants, including a number of priests. As in most of the English-speaking world Irish immigrants provided the backbone to a newly confident Catholic church, including building a large number of parishes from their own resources.

The growth of a Catholic middle class, as many children of working class Irish families moved into the suburbs meant that in the twentieth century there was a comparatively rapid growth of Catholic churches (at least in comparison to Anglican and Non-Conformist churches) in these areas. Coupled with the replacement of smaller Nineteenth Century churches by now richer parishes, Catholic churches are more likely to be of a modern foundation than virtually any other large Christian denomination apart from Pentecostalists.

The links below are to the history pages of various parish sites from different parts of the country, many of which have been written for the parishes themselves.

Contents

[edit] Berkshire

Reading was a centre of Recusancy in Southern England and there is a continuing Catholic tradition (which even had an effect on the controversial Anglican Archbishop Laud through his mother). After the Second World War a large number of Eastern European Catholics settled in Berkshire, although most Catholics in the county are descendants of Irish immigrants.

[edit] Buckinghamshire

[edit] Bristol

[edit] Cambridgeshire

[edit] Cheshire

[edit] Cleveland

[edit] Cornwall

[edit] Cumbria

[edit] Devon

[edit] Dorset

[edit] Durham

[edit] Essex

[edit] Gloucestershire

[edit] Hampshire

For historical reasons Hampshire's Catholicism was shaped by emigres from the French Revolution and the large Catholic population on the Channel Islands. Like much of Southern England the Recusant and Irish communities were proportionately small.

[edit] Herefordshire

[edit] Hertfordshire

[edit] Kent

Kent was a centre of anti-Roman Catholic agitation known as the "Kentish fire". As a consequence there were few Recusant families from Kent. Its geographical position meant that the Nineteenth Century revival was far more likely to be led by French emigres and their descendants than Irish immigrants.

[edit] Lancashire

Lancashire was a centre for continued Catholic observance through the Penal Times. Lancashire was unusual in that Catholicism was not confined to the (numerous) Catholic gentry but was also popular in many of the towns such as Preston. Together with the large Irish influx, due to Lancashire's position on the North West coast of England Lancashire has one of the stronger Catholic presences in England.

[edit] Lincolnshire

[edit] London

London had a continuing Catholic presence for a number of reasons. Firstly the presence of a large number of embassies of Catholic powers meant that Embassy chapels could continue without the harassment and sometimes suppression visited on other Roman Catholic places of worship. Many of London's older Catholic churches are outgrowths of these Embassy chapels. There was also a large merchant population which meant that there was always a shifting Catholic population (although under the Test Acts Catholics in common with other non-Anglicans were not allowed to reside in the City of London). Many London churches were specifically founded to cater for particular nationalities such as the Italian, Chinese and Polish communities - a practice that continues today. Although London has a large Irish population who, especially in the suburbs, formed the nucleus of most Catholic parishes as in the rest of England, there are large non-Irish immigrant Catholic populations, from places such as St Lucia and the Philippines.

[edit] Manchester

Manchester, unlike the rest of Lancashire, owes its large Catholic population to Irish immigration. There is a strong anti-Catholic tradition in Manchester which finds peculiar expression in Football with Manchester United traditionally representing the Catholic immigrants and Manchester City representing the native Protestants. Even today many supporters of the more overtly Protestant Rangers also claim to support Manchester City for this reason.

[edit] Merseyside

Liverpool was long a centre of Irish, and hence Roman Catholic, immigration. For years Roman Catholics in Liverpool made up almost a majority of the population.


[edit] Northamptonshire

[edit] Northumberland

[edit] Nottinghamshire

[edit] Oxfordshire

[edit] Norfolk

East Anglia has traditionally had a lower Roman Catholic population than the rest of the country, and Norfolk is no exception. Most Roman Catholics are clustered in urban centers, especially Norwich.

The Duke of Norfolk, however, is the highest ranking Roman Catholic nobleman in the country and his family, the Howards were one of the premier recusant families in England.

Swaffham, Our Lady of Pity

[edit] Somerset

Somerset, while not a centre of Recusancy in the way that some parts of the north of England were, still had a continuing Catholic presence thanks to a number of local Recusant families and the distance from London. Many of the parishes in Somerset were set up on this recusant foundation.

[edit] Staffordshire

[edit] Suffolk

[edit] Surrey

[edit] Sussex

Sussex is home to one of the more colorful reminders of English "No Popery", the Lewes Bonfire Procession where an effigy of the Pope is still burned and bonfire processions are a feature of many towns and villages of Sussex. Sussex is also home to the Howard family of Arundel, the head is the Duke of Norfolk who were the noblest of the Roman Catholic recusant families. Many Catholic churches in Sussex were originally started as a Norfolk family bequest, including Arundel Cathedral. Sussex was also the home of the Ditchling Guild (including Eric Gill) and the Roman Catholic controversialist Hillaire Belloc who lived in West Grinstead, also home to a Roman Catholic recusant family.


[edit] Tyne and Wear

The large Roman Catholic community of Newcastle and surrounding towns can mainly be traced back to nineteenth Irish and Scottish immigrants.


[edit] Warwickshire

[edit] West Midlands

[edit] Wiltshire

[edit] Yorkshire

Yorkshire with its large monasteries was an early centre of resistance to the reformation, with the Pilgrimage of Grace that opposed Henry VIII's reforms centred around Yorkshire. Yorkshire, especially York, provided a disproportionate amount of early Roman Catholic martyrs such as Saint Margaret Clitherow. Guy Fawkes was a native of Yorkshire. A recusant presence survived and although not as large as neighbouring Lancashire, it was more significant than more southerly counties. Many of the decisive monuments of the lifting of the Penal Laws are in Yorkshire, such as Ampleforth Abbey and the Bar Convent. Yorkshire Roman Catholicism is a split creature, with a large Irish contingent in the cities (especially Leeds) and mining and industrial areas, and a strong recusant element in more rural areas, especially in North Yorkshire - giving it the feel of two almost distinct social sets.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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