John Ingram

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For the Irish poet and scholar, see John Kells Ingram

The Venerable John Ingram (1565-1594) was an English Jesuit and martyr from Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I.^[1]

Ingram was probably the son of Anthony Ingram of Wolford, Warwickshire, by Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Hungerford. He began his education in Worcestershire and attended New College, Oxford. He then converted to Catholicism and studied at the English College, Rheims, at the Jesuit College, Pont-a-Mousson, and at the English College, Rome. He was ordained at Rome in 1589; and then, early in 1592, he went to Scotland. There he befriended many powerful people. Captured on the Tyne on 25 November, 1593, he was first imprisoned at Berwick; then at Durham, York, and in the Tower of London, where he was severely tortured and wrote twenty Latin epigrams, which survive.

After his ordeal at the Tower, he was sent North again and imprisoned at York, Newcastle, and Durham. There he was tried with John Boste and George Swallowell, a converted minister. He was convicted under a law, which made the mere presence in England of a priest ordained abroad high treason, even though there was no evidence that he had ever acted as a priest while in England. There is evidence that someone in Scotland offered the English Government a thousand crowns to spare Ingram's life, all in vain. He was executed at Newcastle upon Tyne on July 26, 1594.

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This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.