¹ Lannon, David Bishop Turner and Educational Provision within the Salford Diocesan Area 1840–1872, M.Phil thesis, Hull University, 1994.Google Scholar

² John, Nicholas Murphy: Terra Incognita, London 1873, p.202.Google Scholar

³ Murphy, op.cit., p.208.

⁴ Synodal Letter 15 July 1855. Acta, Salford Diocesan Archives (S.D.A.).

⁵ Thomas, D. H.: Reformatory and Industrial schools: an annotated list, Newcastle Polytechnic, Newcastle on Tyne, 1986.Google Scholar

⁶ Thomas, op.cit., passim.

⁷ Burke, T.: Catholic History of Liverpool, Liverpool, 1910.Google Scholar Burke records an initial public meeting which saw on the platform the unlikely combination of, among others, the strongly anti-Catholic Anglican cleric McNeill, the Rev. Charles Birrefl of the Pembroke Chapel, Martineau the Unitarian leader, and the Roman Catholic coadjutor bishop. Their concern about the plight of young offenders—a figure of 12,508 youngsters imprisoned throughout the country was quoted—had overcome doctrinal differences.

⁸ The Rosminians (or Institute of Charity) were founded in 1828 by Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, who was born in 1797 and ordained priest in 1821. The intention was that members of the Institue, rather than concentrating on a particular type of apostolate, should undertake every work of charity of which they were capable, if called upon so to do. The Institute quickly spread in Italy, and in 1835 three members arrived in England at the invitation of Bishop Peter Augustine Baines O.S.B. and went to Prior Park. The Institute, which consists of both priests and brothers, received Papal approbation in 1838.

⁹ Carson, Robert: The First 100 Years 1878–1978: The Diocese of Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, 1978, p. 117.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Carson, op.cit., p. 118. Vavasour's intention was to form a Franciscan Community, and he himself had set off to Rome intending to become a priest, but died en route.

¹¹ Evinson, The Lord's House, Sheffield Academic Press, 1991, pp. 69–72.Google Scholar

¹² Ad Clerum, 16 July, 1861. Acta SDA. Carter was a member of the Girls’ Reformatory Committee and Turmer had appointed him to receive funds as well for the Boys’ Reformatory at Market Weighton. Their Committee at an 1861 meeting in York had approved the purchase of Howard Hill ata cost of £1,450.

¹³ Report of the (Salford Diocesan) Board of Management, 15 August 1863, S.D.A. Box 59.

¹⁴ Pastoral Letter, 21 November 1856, for this and following four quotations.

¹⁵ I shall refer to this reformatory as ‘the colony’.

¹⁶ Elliot B., op.cit., pp. 15; Gillow, Dictionary, Vol. I, p.343; Morrison: The life of Abbot Bernard Burden passim. This manuscript biography is kept in the M.S.B. Archives. A convert to Catholicism, Burder started life as a non conformist who became an Anglican, and in 1846, a Roman Catholic. He entered the Cistercian community under its first Abbot, Dom Bernard Palmer, and succeeded him as Abbot after his death.

¹⁷ Elliot B., op.cit.

¹⁸ The undated text of these rules is preserved in the M.S.B. Archives. Explicit reference therein to the ‘The Brothers of the Third Order of Cistercians’ indicate an early date of publication, if not contemporaneous with the opening of the colony.

¹⁹ Extract in M.S.B. Archives.

²⁰ Morrison, op.fcit., gives full details of the visitations. Burder, after several attempts to join monastic communities, and spells as a private chaplain, died at Lulworth Castle in September 1881.

²¹ Tucker, J. L. G. ‘A Correction’ published in Recusant History May 1980 p.213 Google Scholar contradicted several of Elliot's statements and claimed to correct many points of detail. Elliot responded in the next issue p.302 with ‘A Reply’ disagreeing with Tucker's views.

²² Manning of course was familiar with the Hammersmith Reformatory founded by Cardinal Wisemanand was dismayed at what he saw at Mount St. Bernard's.

²³ Elliot, op.cit.

²⁴ A similar objection had been lodged in regard to St. George's Industrial School in Liverpool, but dogged argument by Cardinal (then Archbishop) Manning and Fr. Nugent of Liverpool won the day. Battersby considers that it was probably as well that the Brothers had not accepted the charge of Mount St. Bernard, as they were hardly prepared for such work at that time, especially as their foundations in England were very closely modelled on Continental tradition, and so were lacking in appreciation of the different spirit and customs of the English. Battersby, W.: History of the Institute of the Christian Brothers in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 3, 1850–1900. p.140.Google Scholar

²⁵ Leicestershire Journal, 13 April 1863, p.8, 17 July 1863, p.8. M.S.B. Archives. The disturbance occured when Fr. Smith sought police help to detain certain boys who had barricaded themselves into the dormitory after an incident about illicit smoking which had escalated. In the ensuing affray, Constable Challoner had been severely assaulted with iron bars taken from the beds, and the contents of chamber pots had been poured over the forces of law and order! Taken to trial, two of the culprits were sentenced to three years penal servitude, and the other three to be returned to the reformatory after serving varying terms of hard labour.

²⁶ Elliot, op.cit.

²⁷ The Committee is at times called the East Lancashire Reformatory Committee. There appears to be no evidence that it and the Salford Diocesan Reformatory Committee were distinct entities.

²⁸ Chapter Minutes, 7 January 1863.

²⁹ Chapter Minutes, 4 February 1863.

³⁰ William Harper was a well known Bury solicitor and convert. He was for several years Town Clerk of Bury.

³¹ Report of the Board of Management, 15 August 1863, S.D.A Box 59.

³² Chapter Minutes, 4 March 1863.

³³ Frondes Silvulae, p.88. Frondes Silvulae was the magazine of the Salford Diocesan Grammar School founded by Turner, whose rector, De Clerc, noted that Turner was helped in this tremendous undertaking by some very noble-minded Catholics, and in particular by one of the Canons of the Diocese, although he omits naming him. Without them, claims de Clerc, the Bishop, advanced in years and over-burdened with work, could not have succeeded.

³⁴ Bishop Brown in 1864 authorised the creation of a Liverpool Catholic Reformatory Association. Liverpool turned its attention to providing accommodation afloat for boys, and the saga of the hulk ‘Clarence’ began in August 1864, Details are given in Father Nugent of Liverpool by Canon John Oswald Bennett (Liverpool 1949, reprinted London 1994) and Yesterdays Naughty Children by Joan, Rimmer (Richardson, Swinton, 1986).Google Scholar Ironically after the final fire the boys were transferred to the re-opened colony at Mount St. Bernard's until new accommodation could be provided. The Lancashire Reformatory for Roman Catholic Girls opened at Blackbrook House, St. Helens, where it was originally founded and certified in June 1869, and moved to May Place in Broad Green, Liverpool, in 1876. The Birkdale Farm Reformatory School for the Liverpool Diocese opened at Ainsdale in November 1871, certified for 200 inmates.

³⁵ Fr. Quick was born in Blackburn in 1833. In 1858 he had been at Mount St. Bernard's, trying his vocation as a monk, but had left and after studies at Oudenard, had been ordained a priest on 21 June 1863, aged thirty. In later years he was involved in orphanage and industrial school work, founding St. Joseph's Industrial School in Manchester, before leaving the diocese for missionary work in Canada where he died in 1898.

³⁶ Chapter Minutes, 3 June 1863.

³⁷ In passing we may note that Turner had on other occasions verbally agreed matters, and that such verbal agreements had also led to disputes. One such incident referred to land at Haslingden, and another to the question at to whether the Jesuits could, at a future date, open a school or college in Manchester.

³⁸ ibidem.

³⁹ Pastoral Letter, 12 September 1863.

⁴⁰ Leicestershire Journal, 6 June 1864, p.8, offers a vivid report of the disturbance. On Tuesday 24 May, some fifty boys absconded. There appeared to be a preconceived plan that others would then abscond while the search was mounted for these first absconders, many of whom were quickly recaptured with the aid of a local man. The next day thirty boys saw and pursued him to a local inn, which they then besieged in an effort to capture him, but before the police arrived, they fled. Some were arrested, tried and imprisoned. On the Friday, passive disobedience was general in the reformatory. Quick had telegraphed to London to obtain police back-up but was informed it would not be forth-coming, so he sought the assistance of Inspector Ward and the smaller local force. With the boys barricaded in the dormitories, Quick eventually authorised the taking out of the ring leaders. This was finally accomplished, and they were placed in the cells. Ten were taken on the Saturday to the local town for trial, twenty two were publicly flogged in view of the whole school at the colony, and several were placed on a diet of bread and water for a suitable period. Sunday and Monday remained quiet, although eight constables remained on site at the expense of the reformatory, and additional police patrolled the locality to reassure the frightened inhabitants.

⁴¹ Leicestershire Mercury, 4 July 1864; Loughborough Monitor, 6 July 1864. M.S.B. Archives.

⁴² The Times, 4 June 1864. M.S.B. Archives.

⁴³ Pastoral Letter, 20 January 1865. The future employment of boys from the reformatory remained a constant difficulty. Emigration was expensive: but if boys remained in England, although provided with clothes and tools, a relapse into crime was possible, some would say probable, In early days Burder himself had drawn attention to this problem. No easy solution was ever found.

⁴⁴ The Chapter Minutes, 2 August 1865, state that the colony should be given up on 30 September unless financial help from elsewhere was forthcoming.

⁴⁵ Pastoral Letter, 19 Jaunary 1866, S.D.A. Acta 76.

⁴⁶ Carroll, born in Co. Wexford 5 April 1837, studied at the Albert Institute in Dublin before going to England and his post at Mount St. Bernard's. On returning to Ireland, he was appointed agriculturalist to the Munster Model Farm and Dairy School in Cork on 11 May 1880. He later accepted the post of agricultural superintendant at the Albert Institute, Dublin, remaining there until 1902. His work in trying to raise new varieties of blight free potato from seed, in pioneering the use of pesticides and in discovering that blight was spread by air-borne spores is recorded in the article in the MSB archives. He died 30 July 1918 in Dublin.

⁴⁷ Elliot, op.cit., gives one example quoted of a planned escape. In May 1864, after a telegram warned him a door had been found broken open, Carroll returned from London at high speed to nip in the bud an attempt to abscond. Those slightly involved were strapped six times on the hand and the ringleaders received in one case seventeen strokes across the shoulders, in three cases some thirty strokes, and in the final three cases, thirty strokes of the birch and one stroke of the cat.

⁴⁸ The Colony Visitors’ Book records certain of their comments when delivering boys to the colony. Typical examples are usefully quoted: ‘found everything clean and in good order. The boys appear to be practically employed and I was much struck by their heathy looks’ Manning, Governor, Chester Castle 30 June 1865; ‘Very pleased with the good order of the boys’ Walmsley, Governor, Ruthin Gaol, 21 December 1865; ‘Everything appears in good order, the discipline good, the boys healthy and contented and well trained to habits of regularity and laborious industry’, Manning, 27 August 1866. H.M.I. Turner and Rogers made regular inspections. Turner reported shortly after Salford took charge that ‘the improvement manifest in all departments of the institution is very satisfactory’, 18–19 April1864.

⁴⁹ Elliot, op.cit.

⁵⁰ Bennett: Father Nugent, pp.51–58. Bennett's account implies that the L.C.R.A. had existed long before 1863. This seems to be another of his inexactitudes. A first A.G.M. in 1864 argues otherwise!

⁵¹ Statement of the pecuniary relations between the Mount St. Bernard Reformatory and the Diocese of Liverpool. Published in Bury 1868 by the East Lancashire Catholic Reformatory Committee. This text is the source for the information given in the next few paragraphs.

⁵² Diary extracts, 21 June 1867, M.S.B. Archives.

⁵³ Information copied by Ambrose Southey in Autumn 1952 from the Cistercian Definatory Archives in Rome and kept in MSB Archives.

⁵⁴ Letter of Manning to Ullathorne, 24 July 1867, M.S.B. Archives.

⁵⁵ Sisk to the Duke of Portland, 3 December 1870. M.S.B. Archives. Sisk had been asked as chaplain to raise some £2,000 for this purpose. Brother Augustine Higgs had previously written to Wiseman concerning the possibility of begging on the Continent to raise funds for the colony's expenses.

⁵⁶ Colony Visitors’ Book 26, 27 February 1872.

⁵⁷ Statement, S.D.A. Box 58. Covering some 24 foolscap pages, and written in long hand, their claim was accompanied by a 122 page appendix divided into 19 headings, and a sheaf of cullings from news-papers and pamphlets to illustrate and support the main thrusts of the Committee's arguments.

⁵⁸ Elliot, op,cit.. Vaughan had founded St. Bede's College, was starting his Rescue Society, and had begun a Seminary of Pastoral Theology for training his new priests, coming as they did from several nationalities and from many different seminaries in England, Ireland and the Continent.

⁵⁹ Argeement, S.D.A. Box 58.

⁶⁰ Leicester Journal, 2 August 1878, details the outbreak, the third within a short period, the ensuing confrontation with the police at Thorpe outside Loughborough, and the fate of the absconders. Later a rumour grew that an alleged fire had been started at the colony by the boys (Leicester Mercury, 3 February 1977) or that some 22 boys had perished in a colony fire and were buried at Mount St. Bernard's (Whitwick Times, 3 February 1967). The M.S.B. Archives holds no evidence to suggest there ever was a fire. Boys did die over the years and were buried at the colony, but this was the result of illness and disease. Holmes in his article ‘Reform of the Reformatories’ in the Fabian Society Magazine of August 1902 noted that ‘The death rate is considerably higher in Roman Catholic than in Protestant Schools, and it is exactly these schools that we find poverty stricken and overcrowded. In these schools too the percentage of reconviction is much higher than in the Protestant Schools. Both the high death rate and the high number of reconvictions is attributed by H.M.I. to the lack of funds for proper administration.’ To which might be added a reminder that many of the boys committed, being from the Irish poor, were physically weaker through hunger and disease than their Protestant counterparts. The comment about lack of finance seems proven.

⁶¹ Elliot, op.cit.