Ushaw College

Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99...

(College of St. Cuthbert)

A combined college andseminary for the sixdioceses that were comprised in the old Northern Vicariate ofEngland. The government is vested in a united board of thebishops of thesedioceses, with a president, a vice-president, and staff of about 30 professors. The average number of students is over 300, divided into three courses: the preparatory course, including about 80 boys, the humanity course with about 130, and thephilosophical andtheological with about 100.

History

The suppression of the "Grands Anglais" atDouai theseminary which for 200 years had meant theCatholicFaith toEngland, was only one of the many far-reaching results that theFrench Revolution brought in its train. The immediate necessity under which theEnglishCatholics found themselves of providing for the continuation of its work led to a project of establishing one college for the whole ofEngland on English soil. Many difficulties supervened and finally the question arranged itself by the division of the refugee students fromDouai into two bodies, one of which found shelter at Old Hall near Ware, while the remainder (mainly composed of students who were destined for the Northern Vicariate), after temporary sojourns at Tudhoe and Pontop, two villages in the vicinity ofDurham, settled on 15 Oct., 1794, at Crook Hall, about eleven miles N.W. of that city. There they re-establishedDouai for the north ofEngland, and it lived its life under the guidance of one of its former professors,Thomas Eyre, ofJohn Lingard, the future historian, and of John Daniel, the actual president ofDouai at its suppression, who seems to have been formally installed as president for a few days. Ten years' growth made Crook Hall inadequate for its purpose, and in 1804 Bishop William Gibson began the buildings at Ushaw to which four years later, the colony finally migrated, the first detachment on 19 July, the rest on 2 August, 1808. There they found three sides of a massive quadrangle, with a frontage of about 170 feet and a depth of 220, ready for their habitation. The fourth side of this quadrangle was not added till 1819, under the president who succeededEyre in 1811, Dr. John Gillow; but no further material addition was made to the buildings until the fourth president, Charles Newsham, succeeded in 1837. He realized that, if Ushaw was adequately to continue its career, no pains nor expense must be spared to enlarge its capacity and to bring its arrangements into line with more modern requirements. The pioneers of theGothic revival were at hand to assist him in this, and from the plans of the twoPugins and the two Hansoms the second church with its attendantchapels, thelibrary, infirmary, museum, exhibition hall, lavatories, kitchens, and farm buildings, and a separate establishment for the younger boys, all sprang up around the old Georgian quadrangle.

In much more than a convention sense Monsignor Newsham may be called the founder of modern Ushaw; and the best evidence of how far-seeing were his plans and achievements lies in the fact that for twenty years after his death, in 1863, practically no addition was made to the fabric. In 1883 Monsignor Wrennal found itnecessary to build a third church. Under Bishop Wilkinson, who assumed the presidency in 1890, which he held conjointly with the Bishopric ofHexham and Newcastle till his death in 1909, a fresh period of activity began. A covered swimming bath, a gymnasium, two new dormitories, and over forty new living rooms, the enlargement of the exhibition hall, the elaborate decoration of the church with the erection of a newhigh altar, are all the products of his nineteen years of presidency. Two presidents have held office since his death: Monsignor Joseph Corbishly, who survived him only a year, and Monsignor William Henry Brown, under whom new lecture rooms have been erected to accommodate the largely increased numbers ofphilosophy and divinity students. Altogether the present blocks of buildings, with their enclosed courts, cover a rectangle 880 feet long by 420 feet broad; the outbuildings, grounds, and campus cover over 100 acres, and the whole estate, with its home and outlying farms, includes between 1200 and 1300 acres.

Many objects of historical and artistic interest are preserved in the college.Lingard bequeathed to it all his books and papers, which included an earlymanuscript and theproof sheets of his "History of England" with about 1500 of his letters;Wiseman is represented by themanuscripts of "Fabiola" and the "Hidden Gem", and of many sermons, lectures, and letters, whileEyre gathered for it a valuable collection of documents dealing with the EnglishCatholic history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and intended for a continuation of Dodd's "Church History". Thelibrary, in which these are stored, contains about 45,000 volumes, mainly oftheological and historical interest. It is especially rich in early printedliturgical books and in seventeenth-century controversy. Examples of Wynken de Worde's "York Manual",Higden's "Polychronicon", the "Nuremburg Chronicle", the "Ulm Cosmographs", the "Complutensian Polyglot", are found on its shelves, and, perhaps more interesting than all, about forty works that belonged to the pre-Reformationlibrary ofDurham Abbey and which still retain the original monastic bindings. Themanuscripts include, in addition to the collection already mentioned, a large number of oldEnglishmissals, psalters, and books of hours, as well as many documents connected with the history of the colleges atDouai,Lisbon, and Valladolid, and with the progress ofCatholicism in the north ofEngland. The museum, too, is rich inrelics ofpersecution times, severalmissals and altar stones and an old woodencrozier that belonged toBishop Dicconson being among the most remarkable. The church treasury contains several splendid examples of church plate, achalice assigned to Benvenuto Cellini taking the place ofhonour. It also preserves achasuble that tradition connects withWestminster Abbey and another that belonged toCuthbert Tunstall, the lastCatholicBishop ofDurham. The collection ofrelics is one of the largest extant in private hands, and includes a largerelic of theTrue Cross and a ring that was taken from the body ofSt. Cuthbert when thetomb atDurham was rifled during theReformation.

Education

In her system ofeducation Ushaw has clung tenaciously, though progressively, to the traditions she inherited from the "Alma Mater Duacensis" which she was founded to replace. No other college inEngland has found it possible permanently to retain, throughout the whole of its career, the essential characteristic of theDouai system — the co-education ofclerical and lay students throughout their humanities. the classical element still predominates in the course, and even the old class names, rhetoric, poetry, syntax, grammar, and figures, are still retained. For nearly fifty years after leavingFrance theDouai authors were read and theDouai time-table observed with scarcely an alteration. Then the second spring began to make its influence felt ineducation as in all other thingsCatholic.Catholic colleges were affiliated toLondon University in 1840, andCatholic scholarship was at last able to find a criterion to test its standing. Ushaw found she had no reason to shrink from the comparison. Her first two candidates for a degree in arts obtained a first class, and their example was so persistently followed that twenty years later theLondon examinations in arts were made the standard for the course. Roughly speaking, during the thirty-three years from 1863 to 1896, three-fourths of the candidates presented were successful, the exact numbers being 574 and 717. But in the latter year several causes combined to make another standard of comparison desirable, and, in accordance with a general movement among theCatholic colleges, Ushaw substituted the Oxford local and certificate papers for theLondon examinations. About the same time, availing herself of the privilege newly granted by theHoly See, Ushaw utilized theuniversity training which she found close at hand. The college was affiliated to Durham University in 1900, and during the next ten years 22 students took the degree of arts, 16 obtaining classical honours at the final examination, and 27 scholarships of the aggregate value of over 1000 have been secured. But once more the necessity of spending much time on uncongenial subjects has compelled a change of front and the college has returned to theLondon University course, which during the interval has been entirely remodelled.

The history of thephilosophical andtheological courses, which occupy two and four years respectively, follows on very similar lines. TheDouai theses and the customs of "dictates" held for the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The value of the course was soon recognized. By aBrief dated Feb., 1813,Pius VII gave Ushaw and old Hall he power of granting degrees intheology, through there is no record of the privileges ever having been exercised. The introduction of more modern methods began with Monsignor Newsham and today the various chairs are held by professors who have received their training at Ushaw and graduated at foreignuniversities. With very few exceptions professors have always been chosen from former alumni. Generally speaking, the more promising students are selected for special training at the end of their humanities, then, after studyingphilosophy, they teach the lowerschools for three years, with the title of "minor" professors. They then proceed to their divinity, where a further selection is made for specialized study, which is generally taken at someuniversity on the Continent. Long experience has shown the advantage of this system of training professors; another inheritance from the traditions ofDouai.

Prominent alumni

The roll of alumni (1912) includes close on to 5000 names. It embraces over 1000priests, 30bishops, 5archbishops, and 4cardinals:Wiseman, De la Puente, Bourne,CardinalArchbishop ofWestminster, and the Cardinal Secretary of State, Merry del Val, who was not only a student but also a "minor" professor at Ushaw. prominent names in almost every profession and almost every country can be found there. Law is represented inEngland by Mr. Justice Shee, the firstCatholic post-Reformation judge; by Judge O'Connor, former deputy chairman of committees in the House of Commons; inIndia by Mr. Justice John Power Wallis, Judge of the High Court ofMadras; inCanada by the Hon. James Foy, Attorney-general ofOntario; in theUnited States by Joseph Scott ofLos Angeles, a prominent official of theKnights of Columbus. Statesmanship is represented by the present Under-Secretary for the Home Office, William Patrick Byrne, C. B.; the services by General Montague Gerard, K. C. B.,Major Miles O'Reilly; commander of theIrish Brigade at Castelfidardo, and Commodore Edward f. Charlton, Commodore of the Eastern Destroyer Flotilla; art by Charles Napier Hemy, the Royal Academician; architecture by George and Edward Goldie and the youngest Pugin; literature by such names asLingard the historian, Francis Thompson the poet, Wilfred Ward the present editor of the "Dublin Review", and Joseph Gillow, the compiler of the well-known "Bibliographical Dictionary of theEnglishCatholics".

CONTACT US |ADVERTISE WITH NEW ADVENT