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Colligite Fragmenta Ne Pereant: A Hundred Years of the Catholic Record Society, 1904–2004

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Aidan Bellenger
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Extract

The Catholic Record Society celebrates its centenary this year. Its inaugural meeting took place in the Chapter Hall of Archbishop’s House, Westminster, on 10 June 1904 with Archbishop Bourne in the chair. The first meeting was convened by Joseph Stanislaus Hansom, who gathered together more than seventy enthusiastic founder members. The original roll was predominantly lay (fifty in total, mainly male, mainly resident in the London area) with a sprinkling of ‘old Catholics’, a few secular priests, a trio of Benedictines, a couple of Jesuits, and an Oratorian. Hansom’s successful initiative was the culmination of a venerable tradition in English Catholic historical scholarship. Benedictine and Jesuit scholars had long collected materials on the history of their respective orders.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , May 2004 , pp. 3 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2005

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References

1 The archives of the Catholic Record Society are divided between the Downside Abbey Library (A 126A) and the Southwark Archdiocesan Archives. The Downside Library has the minute books of the Council from 1904, Southwark copies of the annual reports and assorted correspondence. Printed annual reports are found appended to the earlier volumes of the Record Series.

2 Knowles, D., Great Historical Enterprises (London, 1963), pp. 33–62 Google Scholar.

3 Ibidem, p. 134.

4 Oasquet, F.A., Catholic Record Society I (1905), p. vii Google Scholar.

5 Ibidem, ed., Lord Acton and his circle (London, 1906), pp. 281–2 Google Scholar. Critical reflections on this book are provided by Watkin, A. and Butterfield, H., ‘Gasquet and the Action-Simpson Correspondence’, Cambridge Historical Journal 10 (1950), pp. 77–105 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See Hobsbawn, E. and Ranger, T., eds. The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar and Cannadine, D., In Churchill’s Shadow (London, 2002), pp. 225–6 Google Scholar.

7 Bellenger, D.A., ‘Dom Bede Camm (1864–1942), Monastic Martyrologist,’ Studies in Church History 30(1993), pp. 371–81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Downside, (CRS) Minute Book of Council 1904—16. Inaugural Meeting of 10 June 1904, unpaginated.

9 Ibidem, 28 July 1908. Such disputes form a continuing motif in the Society’s history. The Liber Ruber (Catholic Record Society) 37, 1940 and subsequently, has a whole file at Southwark dedicated to its editorial difficulties. J.S. Hansom himself eventually resigned from the Society on a constitutional matter. A letter (of 31 July 1928) preserved at Southwark refers ‘to the culpable ruining of my report for 1925’ which ‘Cardinal Gasquet actually started to propose when he had to be informed that the most valuable part had been struck out, without proper notice on the proposal of M.R. Engelbach after the Cardinal had actually entered the Room!!!’ (T.S. Hansom to R.C. Wilmot, 31 July 1928, CRS Archives Southwark) G.F. Englebach (1858–1942), a convert, was on the Society’s Council from 1911 until his death with a break from 1928–31. His relationship with Hansom who succeeded him as secretary seems to have been difficult.

10 Bonnar, A., Over Thirty Years Work of the Catholic Record Society (Privately Printed, London, 1935)Google Scholar identifies four main areas for the volumes to that date: (i) martyrs and persecutions, (ii) seminaries and colleges abroad, (iii) genealogical and biographical material and (iv) religious orders at home and abroad. Alphonsus Bonnar, OFM, was on the CRS Council from 1934–57.

11 Harris, P.R., ‘Allison, Antony F. (1916–1996)’, Recusant History 23 (1996), p. 143 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

12 The Tablet, 23 January 1954, p. 89.

13 Southwark CRS Archives (Misc Collection 1935–94) J. C. Heenan to Brigadier T.B. Trappes-Lomax, 22 November 1958.

14 Ibidem, M.D. Knowles to same, 28 July 1958. Trappes-Lomax, Brigadier, Scots Guards, was an influential Council member of the Society who left his research papers and card-index of priests to the Society. Like the Archives they are deposited at Downside and Southwark.

15 See Allison, A., ‘David Rogers 1917–1995’: a memoir and a tribute, Recusant History 22 (1995), pp. 459–64 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See Harris, P.R., ‘Alison, Antony F. (1916–1966)’, Recusant History 23 (1996), pp. 143–47 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

17 Rogers, D., ‘Francis Dominic Allison, 1892–1996’, a Tribute, Recusant History (1967) p. 3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Allison, A. and Rogers, D., ‘Ten Years of Recusant History’, Recusant History 6 (1961), p. 2 Google Scholar.

19 Ibidem, p. 10.

20 Norman, E., ‘Epilogue: the ecclesiastical historian’, in Aston, N., ed, Religious Change in Europe 1650–1914 (Oxford, 1997) p. 401 Google Scholar.