WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



LIVERPOOL 



brand, S.J., who then lived at Little Crosby, in 1701 

 received 3 from Mr. Eccleston 'for helping at 

 Liverpool.' 895 The first resident missioner known 

 was Fr. Francis Mannock, S.J., who was living here 

 in 1710 ; and the work continued in the hands of 

 the Jesuits until the suppression of the order. The 

 next priest, Fr. John Tempest, better known by his 

 alias of Hardesty, built a house for himself near the 

 Oldhall Street corner of Edmund Street, in which 

 was a room for a chapel. 896 In 1746, after the 

 retreat of the Young Pretender, the populace, relieved 

 of its fears, went to this little chapel, made a bonfire 

 of the benches and woodwork, and pulled the house 

 down. 897 Henry Pippard, a merchant of the town, 

 who married Miss Blundell, the heiress of Little Cros- 

 by, treated with the mayor and corporation about re- 

 building the chapel. This, of course, they could not 

 allow, the law prohibiting the ancient worship under 

 severe penalties, whereupon he said that no one 

 could prevent his building a warehouse. This he 

 did, the upper room being the chapel. 898 It was 

 wrecked during a serious riot in 1759, but was 

 enlarged in 1797 and continued to be used until 

 St. Mary's, from the designs of A. W. Pugin, was built 

 on the same site and consecrated in 1845. In con- 

 sequence of the enlargement of Exchange Station it 

 was taken down, but rebuilt in Highfield Street on 

 the same plan and with the same material, being 

 reconsecrated 7 July 1885. The baptismal register 

 commences in 1741. After the suppression of the 

 Jesuit order in 1773 the two priests then in charge 

 continued their labours for ten years, when the Bene- 

 dictines took charge, and still retain it. 899 



They at once sought to obtain an additional site 

 at what was then the south end of the town, and in 

 1788 St. Peter's, Seel Street, was opened. It was 

 enlarged in 1843, and is still served by the same 

 order. 900 The school in connexion with it was 

 opened in 1817. 



About the same time Fr. John Price, an ex-Jesuit, 

 was ministering at his house in Chorley Street (1777), 

 and by and by (1788) built the chapel in Sir Thomas's 

 buildings, which was used till his death in I8I3. 901 

 It was then closed, as St. Nicholas' was ready, work 

 having been commenced in 1808, and the church 

 opened in i8i2. 902 Since 1850 it has been used as 

 the cathedral. At the north end of the town 

 St. Anthony's had been established in 1 804 ; the 

 present church, on an adjacent site, dates from 

 1833, and has a burial ground. 903 St. Joseph's in 

 Grosvenor Street was opened in 1846, a new build- 

 ing being completed in i878.* 4 



These buildings' 05 sufficed till the great immigra- 

 tion of poor Irish peasants, driven from home by the 

 famine of 1847. St. Vincent de Paul's mission had 

 been begun in a room over a stable in 1843, but 

 after interruption by the fever of 1847 a larger room 

 in Norfolk Street was secured in 1848, and served 

 until in 1857 the present church was erected. Holy 

 Cross was begun in 1848 in a room over a cowhouse 

 in Standish Street, and in 1850 was given to the care 

 of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who are still in 

 charge. The church was built in 1860, and the 

 chancel opened in 1875. St. Augustine's, Great 

 Howard Street, was an offshoot in 1849 from 

 St. Mary's, and is still in charge of the Benedictines. 



MS Foley's Rec. S. J. v, 320. It may 

 be inferred that tome attempt was made 

 to provide regular services, and, of course, 

 that there was a congregation. 



886 i while I lived in the foresaid town 

 I received, one year with another, from the 

 people about one or two and twenty pounds 

 a year, by way of contribution towards 

 my maintenance, and no other subscrip- 

 tion was ever made for me or for the 

 buildings. From friends in other places 

 I had part of the money I had built with, 

 but much the greatest part was what I 

 pared, living frugally and as not many 

 would have been content to live. . . . 

 Nor do I regret having spent the best 

 years of my life in serving the poor Catho- 

 lics of Liverpool ; ' Letter of Fr. Hardesty 

 in Foley, op. cit. v, 364. Edmund Street 

 at that time was on the very edge of the 

 town. On Palm Sunday 1727 there 

 were 256 palms distributed here ; N. 

 Blundell's Diary, 224. 



"7 Picton's Liverpool, i, 1 80. An ac- 

 count by Thomas Green, written in 1833, 

 is preserved at St. Francis Xavier's Col- 

 lege ; his mother witnessed the scene. 

 It was printed in the Xaverian of Feb. 

 1887, and states : 'The incumbents, the 

 Revs. H. Carpenter and T. Stanley, met 

 the mob, which behaved with the greatest 

 respect to the priests and several of the 

 principal Roman Catholic inhabitants at- 

 tending there among the rest, Miss 

 Elizabeth Clifton (afterwards Mrs. Green) 

 and without noise or violence opened a 

 clear passage for the Rev. Mr. Carpenter 

 to go up to the altar and take the 

 ciborium out of the tabernacle and carry 

 it by the same passage out of the 

 chapel.' 



898 Subscriptions were collected for it. 

 The site was at the upper end of Edmund 



Street. Considerable precautions were 

 taken for its safety. The writer just 

 quoted states that on the street front 

 three dwelling-houses were built, one to 

 serve for the resident priests ; at the back 

 was a small court, and then the 'ware- 

 house,' the outside gable of which had the 

 usual teagle rope, block and hook, and 

 wooden cover. The folding doors were, 

 however, bricked up within. 



He adds the following : ' After 24 Sep- 

 tember, 1746, when Mr. and Mrs. Green 

 went to their house in Dale Street, while 

 the new chapel was being built, mass was 

 said, Sundays and holidays, in their garrets, 

 the whole of which, as well as the tea and 

 lodging rooms of the two stories under- 

 neath, and the stairs, were filled by their 

 acquaintances of different rankt and ad- 

 mitted singly and cautiously through 

 different entrances, wholly by candle light, 

 and without the ringing of a bell at the 

 elevation, &c., but a signal was commu- 

 nicated from one to another. The house 

 adjoining on each side to the dwellings of 

 two very considerable, respectable, and 

 kind neighbours, Presbyterians, and their 

 wives, aunts of the present Nicholas 

 Ashton, esq., of Woolton.' 



899 These particulars are from articles 

 in the Li-v. Cath. An. for 1887 and 1888, 

 by the Rev. T. E. Gibson, and in the 

 Xa-vtrian of 1887. 



Among the last Jesuits in charge were 

 Frs. John Price and Raymund Hormasa 

 alias Harris. The former, after the sup- 

 pression of the society, settled in Liver- 

 pool, continuing his ministry as stated in 

 the text. The latter, who was a Spaniard, 

 published a defence of the slave trade in 

 reply to a pamphlet by William Roscoe, 

 issued in 1788, and was cordially thanked 

 by the Common Council. He had in 



51 



1783 been deprived of his faculties by the 

 Vicar Apostolic, on account of bitter dis- 

 putes between him and his colleague at 

 Liverpool over the temporalities of the 

 mission, and he lived in retirement till his 

 death in 1789. On account of the dis- 

 putes the charge of the mission was given 

 to the Benedictines. A full account of 

 these matters is given in Gillow, Bibl. 

 Diet, of Engl. Cath. iii, 392-5 ; Trans. 

 Hist. Sac. (new ser.), xiii, 162. Harris 

 preached and printed a sermon ' on Catho- 

 lic Loyalty to the present Government,' 

 noticed in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1777. 



900 Trans. Hist. Soc. (new ser.), xiii, 164. 

 Fr. Archibald Macdonald, the founder, 

 engaged in the Ossianic controversy ; Diet. 

 Nat. Biog ; Gillow, op. cit. iv, 369. 



901 It was afterwards used at intervals 

 by a number of religious bodies in turn ; 

 then as a warehouse ; till a few years ago 

 it was taken down and the school board 

 offices erected on the site. 



903 It is rather surprising to find it de- 

 scribed in 1844 as 'an elegant building in 

 the Gothic style ' ; Stranger in Liverpool, 

 270. 



903 In the original building divine ser- 

 vice was performed by the 'Rev. Jean 

 Baptiste Antoine Girardot, a French 

 emigrant priest by whom it was erected. 

 M. Girardot was held in high respect for 

 his many virtues and unostentatious mode 

 of living ; and besides was much celebrated 

 in this part of the country for numerous 

 cures performed by him in cases of 

 dropsy' ; Dr. Thorn in Trans. Hist. Soc. 

 v, 32. 



904 It had been built on the site of a 

 famous tennis court as an Anglican church, 

 All Saints', in 1798, and closed in 1844. 



905 St. Patrick B, erected in 1824, is in 

 Toxteth. 



