The history of the Parish Mission in England begins with a petition addressed to pope Gregory XVI by Monsignor Wiseman at the end of January 1840.
In this document, Mgr. Wiseman expressed his belief that the situation in England gave well-founded hopes for the rapid propagation of the Roman Catholic faith, so long as favourable circumstances were seconded by energetic measures. He said that his own journeys throughout England, the opinion of the Vicars Apostolic, of the clergy and of the people, had confirmed him in his conviction that an Institute of missionary priests would be most efficacious, even necessary, if this rapid growth of Catholicism was to become a reality.