| Description | Pre-reformation papers and papers of the English Secular Clergy, 1501-1688 and papers of the Vicars Apostolic of the London District, 1688-1847.
The papers chiefly comprise correspondence with the Roman agent; papers relating to Synods; copies of Pastorals; correspondence with Vicars Apostolic and clergy from the Western, Midland and Northern Districts and Scotland; correspondence with Irish Bishops; correspondence with institutions of the English Catholic diaspora; correspondence with Bishops and clergy abroad notably with the Catholic Church in the British colonies; legal papers including wills, bequests, leases and trusts and papers of institutions of the English Catholic diaspora including Douai College, 1652-1789; St Omers College, 1762-1772; the English College Rome, 1701-1783; the English College Lisbon, 1708-1791; the English Seminary Paris (also known as St Gregory's, Paris), 1762-1777 and student register for the English College Lisbon, 1628-1715.
The papers of the Vicars Apostolic of the London District include papers from the episcopacy of Bishop John Leyburn, 1688-1702, Bishop Bonaventure Giffard, 1703-1734; Bishop Benjamin Petre, 1734-1758; Bishop Richard Challoner, 1758-1781; Bishop James Robert Talbot, 1781-1789; Bishop John Douglass, 1791-1798; Bishop William Poynter, 1812-1827; Bishop James Yorke Bramston, 1828-1836 and Bishop Thomas Griffiths, 1836-1847.
Highlights of the collection include: a consultation about the dowry of Catherine of Aragon, c 1509; copy of a letter from Mary Queen of Scots, c 1586; letter from St Henry Walpole to Father Persons, 13 Nov 1593; chart of the Royal succession down to James VI of Scotland as published in Father Persons' book on the succession, 1593; letters of Cardinal William Allen; letter from Father Henry Garnet relating to the Gunpowder Plot, c 1605 and a petition from the Citizens of London to Charles I complaining about Popery, 1640.
The Oratorian Thomas Francis Knox, who was involved in the 1874 enquiry into those Rerformation martyrs who were being put forward for beatification was, by 1876 serving as archivist to the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster. As the Tablet noted, he “did much useful work in cataloguing and arranging those documents up to the time of his death in 1882”.[1] The relevant MSS and printed books in the cardinal’s collections and belonging to the so-called Old Chapter were the subject of an HMC report (5th report, London, 1876, p. xii), signed off by Joseph Stevenson, were taken in February 1876 down to the Oratory Church. Fr Knox served as the diocesan archivist up until his untimely death in 1882, at which point Fr Richard Stanton took over. He was responsible for sorting and binding in thirty-seven handsome volumes the majority of the manuscripts, that is up to 1700, and the associated pamphlet material. These papers were taken back to Archbishop’s House on 23 February 1907.[2] Fr Stanton went through the whole collection and returned the MSS 1501-1700 catalogued and arranged in thirty-eight [sic] bound quarto volumes to the archbishop on February 23, 1907, together with some twenty bundles of MSS from 1700-1850”.[3]
[1] London Oratory Archive, typescript biographies, p. 48, printing notice in Tablet (25 March 1882; volume 27, p. 471).
[2] LOA, Br Vincent’s contents list of AAW, dated 23 February 1907. Br Vincent noted that Fr Knox had on his own account “presented many manuscripts to the collection” (among them, some of Dr Kirk’s transcripts). The papers dated after 1700 were noted in February 1913 as being in the process of being bound into further volumes: LOA, Br Vincent’s contents list of AAW, p. 112.
[3] LOA, typescript biographies, pp. 70-1; see also LOA, “Receipt for the Westminster Archives, taken by Revd A. Jackman, private secretary to the Archbishop, Saturday, 23 February 1907”. |