Vicar Apostolic of the London District

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The Vicar Apostolic of the London District was the title given to the bishop who headed an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church in England, the Vicariate Apostolic of the London District, from 1688 to 1850.

Within a short space of time after the accession of Elizabeth I those Catholic bishops who had not died were deposed and replaced in their sees by Protestant appointees. Most of the deposed bishops were imprisoned in various locations and died in captivity over a period of years. The last to die was Thomas Goldwell, Bishop of St Asaph, in Rome on April 3, 1585. In 1623, after 65 years, the pope, Urban VIII, decided once again to appoint a Catholic bishop with actual jurisdiction in England.

The choice fell upon William Bishop, who was given the title of Vicar Apostolic of England. Bishop landed secretly in England at midnight on July 31, 1623, but was to die only nine months later. He was succeeded in office by Richard Smith, also ordained a bishop, who arrived in England in April 1625. However, two warrants issued for his arrest in August 1631, and Smith was forced to resign and flee to France, where he died in Paris in 1655. After 1631 there was no Catholic bishop in England for another 54 years, and the void was to some extent filled by a dean and chapter of rather unsure legal status, established by Bishop and confirmed by Smith. It was only in 1685 that a successor was appointed by Rome, in the person of John Leyburn, a Doctor of the Sorbonne and former President of the English College at Douai, who was consecrated bishop in Rome on September 9, 1685. In 1623, Bishop had divided the country into six areas, at the head of each of which he placed a superior with the title of vicar general and this had remained the system thereafter. Leyburn then reduced these to four. In the summer of 1687 he personally toured the North and confirmed over 20,000 Catholics there.

In early 1688, the number of bishops in England was multiplied by the pope on January 20 to a total of four vicars apostolic and the territory of the former single vicariate apostolic was restricted, being centred still on London, with the title Vicariate Apostolic of the London District. The first Vicar Apostolic of the London District from January 30, 1688 was Bishop John Leyburn, who had been Vicar Apostolic of All England and Wales since August 24, 1685.

Although the vicariates as a whole were later more finely divided over the years, and notwithstanding intermittent persecution, a Vicariate Apostolic of the London District continued in existence until on 29 September 1850 Pope Pius IX issued the bull Universalis Ecclesiae, by which thirteen new dioceses were created, among them the Archdiocese of Westminster, a new jurisdiction to replace formally the previous vicariate.

The last Vicar Apostolic of the London District was Bishop Nicholas Wiseman (d. 1865), who on September 29, 1850 was assigned the title of Metropolitan Archbishop of Westminster and the following day was created a cardinal.

[edit] List of Vicars Apostolic of England and of the London District (1623-1850)

Tenure Incumbent Notes
15 March 1623 to 13 April 1624 Bishop William Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of England Died in office
29 November 1624 to 1632 Bishop Richard Smith, Vicar Apostolic of England Resigned
24 August 1685 to 30 January 1688 Bishop John Leyburn, Vicar Apostolic of England Becoming Vicar Apostolic of London
30 January 1688 to 9 June 1702 Bishop John Leyburn, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
14 March 1703 to 12 March 1734 Bishop Bonaventure Giffard, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
12 March 1734 to 22 December 1758 Bishop Benjamin Petre, OSB, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
22 September 1758 to 12 January 1781 Bishop Richard Challoner, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
12 January 1781 to 26 January 1790 Bishop James Robert Talbot, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
10 September 1790 to 8 May 1812 Bishop John Douglass, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
8 May 1812 to 26 November 1827 Bishop William Poynter, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
26 November 1827 to 11 July 1836 Bishop James Yorke Bramston, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
11 July 1836 to 12 August 1847 Bishop Thomas Griffiths, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
17 July 1848 to 18 February 1849 Thomas Walsh, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Died in office
18 February 1849 to 29 September 1850 Bishop Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman, Vicar Apostolic of the London District Becoming Archbishop of Westminster

[edit] Sources

  • Basil Hemphill, "The Early Vicars Apostolic of England 1685-1750", Burns & Oates, London, 1953.
  • Godfrey Anstruther, "The Seminary Priests", St Edmund's College, Ware / Ushaw College, Durham, vol. 1, pp. 321-322.
  • Godfrey Anstruther, "The Seminary Priests", St Edmund's College, Ware / Ushaw College, Durham, vol. 2, pp. 193, 195-200.

[edit] See also