Introduction
On the 14th of July 1833, John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) preached the customary sermon for the Assizes in the Oxford University church of St Mary the Virgin. The sermon was subsequently published under title “National Apostasy”. Keble was alarmed at the Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act 18331 which was about to become law. This Act would reduce the number of Anglican bishoprics in Ireland and the number of Irish bishops sitting in the House of Lords. For Keble, and many others, allowing non Anglicans into Parliament meant that the Church of England could be governed by non-churchmen rather than the bishops, the successors of the apostles. John Henry Newman later commented, “The following Sunday, July 14th, Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of ‘National Apostasy’. I have ever considered and kept the day, as the start of the religious movement of 1833.” A great deal has been written about the theology, history and influence of the Oxford Movement and its successor movements such as the Ritualists. S. L. The short title in the Republic of Ireland is Church Temporalities Act 1833, assigned by the Statute Law Revision Act 2007.[1] The description "Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act 1833" was used in Hansard.[2] The long title is "An Act to alter and amend the Laws relating to the Temporalities of the Church in Ireland." John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Being a History of His Religious Opinions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p. 43. 5 Ollard’s book, ‘A Short History of the Oxford Movement’3, Owen Chadwick in his two volume work on the Victorian Church4 and various other authors all focus on the themes and characters of the Nineteenth Century Church. ‘The Oxford Handbook of the Oxford Movement’5 edited by Stewart J. Brown, Peter Nockles, and James Pereiro shows that many distinguished scholars are still analyzing the influence of the Tractarians on the Church of England in the present day. In this volume, articles range from ‘The Legacy of the Caroline Divines, Restoration, the Emergence of the High Church Tradition’ by Andrew Starkie to ‘Histories and Anti-Histories’ by Nockles. This volume from 2017 demonstrates that the study of the Oxford Movement and its related endeavours is still of great interest to contemporary academics. Although this work deals with many subjects, it is surprisingly quiet of the slum priests of the Victorian era. Although a great deal of research exists on the broad theological and sociological effects of the Oxford Movement, there is still a lack of research into the realities of working the Tractarian theology out in real parishes. Victorian figures such as Archdeacon Dennison and Fr. Arthur Tooth are well known, many others, however, do not attract the attention they merit. This dissertation will deal with a barely acknowledged figure in this movement, the Reverend Richard William Enraght SSC. He was born on the 23rd of February 1837 in Moneymore, County Londonderry, Ireland6. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in1860. After his ordination to the diaconate (1861) at Gloucester Cathedral, he served his title in St Bartholomew, Corsham, Wiltshire, being ordained to the priesthood in 1862. After curacies in Wiltshire, Sheffield and Lincolnshire, Enraght served as curate of St Pauls’ church, Brighton under the Revd. Arthur Wagner from 1867-71 and as curate in Charge of Portslade by Sea with Hangleton from 1871-1874. It is clear that Enraght was already sympathetic to the ritualist movement that had developed in the wake of the first generation Oxford Movement. His sermon on ‘Bible Ritualism’ which will be dealt with later in this dissertation, pointed to his developing thought on the matter. Indeed, it may be a motive for his accepting a curacy in Brighton under Arthur Wagner. Wagner was a great influence on Enraght during his seven years in and around Brighton. From the moment of Arthur Wagner’s presentation as Perpetual Curate of St Paul’s church in 1850 he was the pioneer of the Tractarian Movement or “Puseyism” as it was called. In his PhD thesis, Stratford deals with the so-called ‘slum priests’ of the midVictorian period: Bryan King (1811-1895), Charles Fuge Lowder (1820-1880), Alexander Heriot Mackonochie (1825-1887), Arthur Henry Stanton (18391913), Robert William Radcliffe Dolling (1851-1902), John Purchas (18231872), Arthur Tooth (1839-1931), Richard William Enraght (1837-1898). Four of the eight named above were graduates of Oxford University, and three Cambridge. All eight served in slum areas through their ritual controversies. from The Oxford graduates were well known
shared similar influences. Dolling came into this same circle having encountered Mackonochie and Stanton during his time in Cambridge. Their influence by the Oxford Movement is quite direct.8 Enraght is the only one on this list who was neither a graduate of Oxford nor Cambridge. However, the Oxford Movement’s influence had spread throughout the Church of England principally through the ‘Tracts for the Times’9 and the scholar-clergy who wrote them. The Oxford Movement grew out of this desire to re-connect with the Primitive Church. Newman’s research on Arianism had led him to delve deeply into the Early Church Fathers. Rowlands notes that, ‘By 1835 Newman had been reading the Fathers for many years. The Romantic spirit did much to arouse Newman.’ A set of ninety pamphlets written by various authors, from 1833-1841, notably including J H Newman who wrote, among others, the first and the last. The notoriety of the 90th Tract triggered much controversy in the Church of England. 10 J. H. L. Rowlands, Church, State and Society, The Attitudes of John Keble, Richard Hurrell Froude and John Henry Newman, 1827-1845 (Churchman Publishing 1989), p. 15 8 As further evidence of his embrace of what would now be called AngloCatholicism, Enraght was enrolled in the Society of the Holy Cross in 1868.11 The Societas Sanctae Crucis was founded on the 28th of February 1855, Its objects are to defend and strengthen the spiritual life of the clergy, to defend the faith of the Church, and to carry on and aid Mission work both at home and abroad. The members of this society, meeting together as they did in prayer and conference, were deeply impressed with the evils in the Church, and saw also, in the remedies adopted by St. Vincent de Paul, the hope of lessening them. Members of the SSC would be at the heart of many of the battles over the Catholic identity of the Church of England in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. While Enraght was at St Paul’s, Brighton, he witnessed the legal difficulties of the Reverend John Purchas, perpetual curate of St James, Brighton, who was charged before the Court of Arches in 1869 for various of his ritual practices. This Vincentian mixture of concern for the poor and clear Catholic teaching must have appealed to Enraght. He had already shown his advocacy for the 11 THE Roll Of Brethren And Probationers Of The Society of the Holy Cross, 1876-77. W. KNOTT, 26, Brooke Street, Holborn. The next chapter will analyse his sermon, ‘To The Poor The Gospel Is Preached’ given in the parish church in 1865. This dissertation will trace Enraght’s life and thought through his published works. In order to maintain clarity, only his major works will be dealt with in detail and they will be arranged thematically where necessary as he sometimes returned to a subject later in his life. Some of the minor publications are still not easily available. Although Enraght was one of the “martyrs” who were sent to prison for ritual abuses, he is hardly mentioned in the historical literature of the period. Why do so many books about this period skate over Enraght? The classic ‘A Short History of the Oxford Movement’, which did so much, in the early part of the 20th Century, to record the achievements of the pioneer Tractarians and Ritualists, only mentions Enraght in passing. Palmer, likewise, in a book focusing on Victorian clergy who fought against the Establishment, deals with Enraght in part of one paragraph and a footnote. Owen Chadwick’s second volume of his great study of the Victorian Church is similarly brief on Enraght’s contribution to the events of his day. It is the contention of this dissertation that in Enraght’s published works a Vincentian16 blend of social justice and Catholic teaching will be found. Although it is wrapped up in the language of his day, a language that can sound patronizing to the modern ear, Enraght had a profound desire to reach the working classes and those he believed the Church had alienated. Enraght, along with Lowder, the founder of the Societas Sanctae Crucis, believed that Eucharistic vestments and other accessories said in a graphic and indisputable way that the Church of England was part of a universal Catholic Church that had historical and theological roots reaching far deeper than England itself.17 Each chapter will reveal something of Enraght’s motivation and theology. From a sermon on the abolition of pew rents and the welcome of the working classes into the new urban parish churches through a paper on the role of ritual in the Bible and the Church and a Tract about the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of Holy Communion to a robust rebuttal of the Church’s treatment of him in his prosecution under the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874, Enraght’s passion for the Catholic nature of the Church of England and her mission to the whole nation, rich and poor alike, is St Vincent de Paul (24 April 1581 – 27 September 1660) was a French Catholic priest who worked to educate the workers in cities and to form priests to serve them. Each chapter of this dissertation will deal with one facet of Enraght’s Vincentian spirtituality as he worked it out not in the Groves of Academe but in the grime and dirt of poor and neglected communities.