A brief account of our diocesan history
This section was added in October 2004, containing chapters in the history of the Diocese.
At present we cover the period 1500 - 1844. The history has been written by Rev David Milburn
- Under the Earlier Tudors (1500-1558)
- Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
- James 1 (1603-25)
- Charles I (1625-49)
- The Protectorate (1649-1660)
- Charles II (1660-1685)
- James II (1685-88)
- 18th Century (i)
- 18th Century (ii)
- 19th Century
10. The 19th Century
The first twenty-five years of the 19th century were marked by a fierce struggle, led by the Irish, for a recognition of Catholic civil and political rights. Almost every year of the new century the English parliament debated the issue before the Act of Emancipation was passed in 1829. The nine Catholic peers of the realm immediately took their seats in the Lords and five Catholic MPs won seats in the next year's elections.
Meanwhile, with an expanding Catholic population which included the first significant number of Irish, new chapels were being opened. Though a number of gentry took exception to the clergy deserting their country houses to work in the new industrial centres, most were very generous in raising money and creating endowments for support of the new missions.
In 1800 Catholics in the six northern counties numbered around 80,000, with well over half in Lancashire. By 1839 the total had increased to over 250,000 with 190 missions. By 1850 the chapels numbered 242. This rapid expansion in the north was mirrored elsewhere in the land, and it led in 1840 to a doubling of the four vicariates, the former northern district being split into three: Lancashire Yorkshire, and a new northern vicariate comprising Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmorland.
Our own relatively rural and sparsely populated region did not in general reflect the rapid growth taking place elsewhere. In 1830, Northumberland had 18 mission centres, and Durham 12. Nine years later the figures were 16 and 13 respectively, with new chapels in Newcastle St Andrew's (1798), Esh (1799), Brooms (1802), Croxdale (1807), North Shields (1821), Hutton House (1822), Darlington (1826), Berwick (1828), and a replacement at Durham (1827). Chapels built in the twenty years 1830-50 (many of them in continuity with an established mission) included Hexham (1830), Stella (1831), Houghton (1832/7), Sunderland (1835), Alnwick (1836), Cowpen (1840), Swinburne and Longhorsley (1841), Birtley (1843), Newcastle St Mary's (1844), Bishop Auckland (1845), Barnard Castle (1847) and Wolsingham (1849).
Not surprisingly, the existing machinery of Church government, even with a doubling of vicariates was seen by many as totally inadequate, and pressure mounted for a restoration; an organisation headed not by vicars apostolic but by bishops in charge of dioceses. When Rome gave in reluctantly and restored the hierarchy in 1850 its worst fears were immediately realised. Anti-Catholic bigotry, led by the London based 'Times' burst out all over the country in the wake of an insensitive letter addressed to the nation by the new archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman. Locally, the “Newcastle Journal” ranted on for months about "self-seeking" Romanism, but by 1852 passion was spent and the newly appointed bishops able to get on with the dull, grinding work of organising their new dioceses.
Bishop William Hogarth, who had been the vicar apostolic of the new northern district, became the first bishop of Hexham (Newcastle was added to the title in 1861). He continued to live in Darlington where he had built the church and because he disliked Newcastle looked to building his cathedral in Hexham, an ancient episcopal see. Better judgement prevailed, however, and the 1844 Pugin St Mary’s in Newcastle became the cathedral church of the new diocese, occupying what was to become a prime site facing the imposing railway station built a few years later.
St Mary's Cathedral, built in 1844
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Copyright 2004 Roman Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle