George Errington and Roman Catholic Identity in Nineteenth-Century England. By Serenhedd James

Abstract

Archbishop George Errington is one of the shadowy figures of nineteenth-century English Catholicism who stands behind the main characters, such as Wiseman, Newman, and Manning. He has long been regarded as something of an enigma, and unravelling ‘the Errington case’ has been a task from which historians have shied away. Serenhedd James, however, first in his doctoral thesis and then in this monograph, has taken on the challenge of investigating the evidence in forensic detail. Errington, while being at the centre of a controversial conflict with his old friend Wiseman, was evidently a man who stirred strong loyalty in his friends. Those friends must now include the author of this study, who, while recognizing the difficulties, concludes that Errington was a victim of circumstance, rather than the author of his own downfall. He has done a stalwart job in restoring Errington to the forefront of the often difficult and complex network of episcopal leadership in Victorian England, and persuasively argued that he ‘does not deserve the scant (and in many instances defamatory) attention that successive scholars have paid to his life and career’ (p. 249).