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The Parentage and Family of the Martyr Blessed John Wall, O.F.M.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

T. B. Trappes-Lomax
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Extract

When Bishop Challoner wrote his account of the martyr Bl. John Wall in the second volume of his Memoirs of Missionary Priests, which was published in 1742, he used as his authority transcripts of some documents which then belonged to the Douai seminary and wrote, “ John Wall … was born in Lancashire in 1620 of a gentleman's family, possessed at that time of about £500 a year, which, he and his elder brother William … entering into religion, was devolved to the third brother and by him enjoyed at the time of the execution of our confessor [i.e. in 1679]. Mr John was sent over young to the English College at Doway.”

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , January 1962 , pp. 195 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1962

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References

1. The transcripts are now at Oscott, the originals in the Westminster Archives.

2. It is not possible to say in what year he went to Douai since he entered the school, not the seminary and the Douai Diary records entries to the latter, not the former.

3. It is preserved in the archives of the English Franciscan Province. It is entitled “Some reflections upon the life and death of Mr Francis Webb directed and dedicated to his penitents in the counties of Warwick, Worcester and Stafford by his true honorer.”

4. The title of the manuscript makes it clear that “Mr. Francis” refers to John Wall's alias of “Francis Webb.”

5. Liber Ruber Venerabilis Collegii Anglorum de Urbe, I (C.R.S. vol. XL) p.25. As will be shown later, March was the married name of his sister Dorothy.

6. “Necrology of the English Province of Friars Minor,“ printed in C.R.S. vol. XXXIV, p.260.

7. “The Fourth Douay Diary,“ printed in C.R.S. vol. XI, pp. 443, 444.

8. Liber Ruber I (C.R.S. vol. XL) p. 35.

9. The Visitation of … Lancaster, made in the year 1664-5, Chetham Society (Old Series) vol. LXXXVIII, pp. 323, 324.

10. Aldeby is some six miles west of Lowestoft.

11. The Visitation of Norfolk Anno Domini 1664, (Norfolk Record Society vol. V,) pp. 228, 229.

12. It is preserved in the District Probate Registry, The Close, Norwich, folio 25.

13. Small fields enclosed by hedges.

14. “The Book of Clothings” printed in C.R.S. vol. XXIV, pp. 25, 26.

15. “A List of Convicted Recusants in the reign of Charles II” printed in C.R.S. vol. VI, p. 291.

16. That the family was back in Norfolk by 1664 is shown by the herald's Visitation already cited. When John's brother William later became a Benedictine of the English Community of Lambspring in Germany, he described himself as “William Wall of Albu in the county of Norfolk” (Dom Bede Camm, The Life of Blessed John Wall, Birmingham, 1932, p. 6). In H. N. Birt, Obit Book of the English Benedictines (Edinburgh, 1913) p. 68, it is stated that William was born c. 1625 at Aldburgh, Suffolk [read Aldeby, Norfolk]. If so, it would suggest that the family had returned to Norfolk by 1625, but would conflict with the statement of the Liber Ruber (above, note 8) that he was of Lancashire birth. Camm comments that William's own statement at Lamb-spring refers “to his ancestral home, rather than to his birthplace”; the birthplace alleged in the Obit Book is clearly based on a misunderstanding of his statement, as well as a misidentification of the place.

17. Liber Ruber I (C.R.S. vol. XL) p. 25.

18. ibid., p. 35.

19. ibid., p, 25.

20. ibid., p. 35.

21. Birt, op. cit., p. 69.

22. Challoner, R., Memoirs of Missionary Priests (edition of 1924) p. 565.Google Scholar

23. Chetham Society (Old Series) vol. LXXXVIH, p. 323.

24. Norfolk Record Society vol. V, p. 228.

25. Camm (op. cit.) who makes this suggestion, was, however, correct in stating that the martyr's family came from Aldeburgh in Norfolk. He calls attention (p. 7) to the epitaph of “William Wall, eldest son of Francis Wall of Aldeby, Gent,” who died in 1685, and conjectures, correctly as it now appears, that he was the son of that third brother to whom the two elder sons handed over the family fortune and estate. But the Norfolk visitation, which suggests that the Norfolk Walls were not connected with the Preston family, and which fills in many details of the martyr's family, was not available in print when Camm was writing.