Father Garnet's works were written in England during the last decade of the sixteenth century when the persecution of priests was at its most intense and Catholic literature was systematically suppressed. They were written anonymously and those that were printed were printed secretly, without indication of place or date. The result has been that his bibliography has remained in a state of confusion to this day. The earliest printed list of his writings, in Alegambe’s Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Iesu (1643), is inaccurate and incomplete, and little attempt has since been made to supplement it. Southwell’s revised edition of Alegambe (1676) reproduces the original list without alteration. Dodd, in The Church History of England (1737–42), also follows Alegambe. The first and only attempt to check Alegambe’s list in the light of original documents is to be found in Oliver’s Collections…S.J. (1845) which gives some corrections and fresh information based on the Stonyhurst MSS. Gillow combines the findings of Dodd and Oliver, adding some speculations of his own which do not stand the test of investigation. Sommervogel and D.N.B. follow Gillow. The extent to which bibliographers blindly copy one another is not always fully realized. Before any satisfactory study of Father Garnet’s life and work can be begun it is essential that his bibliography should be re-established, if possible, from documentary evidence.

JOHN ABBOT, who abroad used the alias of Ashton (C.R.S. XXX, 105) and in England called himself John, or Augustine, Rivers, was born of a London family in 1588. Our chief authority for his early life is entry 289 in the Registers of the English College at Valladolid (C.R.S. XXX). From this we learn that he was aged 21 in 1609, a Londoner born of respectable but non-Catholic parents. A passage taken by Foley (VII, 1152) from the Annual Letter of the English Jesuit College of St. Omer for 1609 adds to our knowledge of his family: “The fathers … received many Protestants into the Church; among whom was an Oxford student of great talent belonging to the Aobot family (a family most hostile to the Catholic faith, two members having been its bitterest foes, viz. a bishop and a dean)”. This can only refer to George Abbot (1562–1633) who at the time of writing was Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, in 16l0 was made Bishop of London, and in 1611 became Archbishop of Canterbury (D.N.B. I, 5), and to his brother Robert Abbot (1560–1617) who in 1609, though not apparently a dean, was chaplain in ordinary to King James and in that year was made Master of Balliol College, and later became Bishop of Salisbury (D.N.B. I, 24). Both brothers published noted anti-Catholic controversial works, and George as bishop was an active persecutor of Catholics. Since the brothers were of a Guildford family, their relationship to John Abbot may not have been close, but it is perhaps significant that all three went to Balliol.

Every student of Catholic history in the 18th century owes a debt to the Reverend John Kirk, D. D. His Biographies of English Catholics is a mine of information and, though it undoubtedly has to be used with care and criticism, it frequently points the way to further information, One of Kirk’s more serious errors is his confusion of the Leckonbys and Whites.

“It has been said that Dr. Hawarden left Douay in 1707. He then came on the Mission, and was placed at Aldcliffe, near Lancaster, where the Daltons then resided … Such, however, was the high opinion that Dr. Smith, Bishop of the North District, had of him, that, wishing to have him nearer to his own person, he placed him at Gilligate in Durham, and when he made his will in 1709 appointed him one of his trustees, and left him £10 for life on condition of his continuing to reside in the North. Soon after his arrival in England he was chosen a member of the Chapter, and in 1710 an Archdeaon, and also the Catholic Controversy Writer. On this latter account it probably was found necessary that he should reside in London in order to have an eye to the works written against us, and that he might have the convenience of books necessary to answer them. He therefore quitted Durham sometime after 1719, and repaired to London.” (Kirk. 115).

Rowland Berkeley, who bought Spetohley in 1606, was a Protestant, as was his son, Sir Robert, who died in 1656. Sir Robert Berkeley disinherited his only son, Thomas, because he became a Catholic and married a Catholic wife (c. 1649); and he left his property to Thomas's elder son, Robert, who was born in 1650, provided that when he reached the age of twenty-one he was a Protestant.

There is a notice of William Mawhood (1724–1797) in Gillow (IV. 543–4); this was included presumably because of his diary notebooks (1764–1790), which contain valuable information relating to the history of Catholicism in England during the period of the Gordon Riots. The Catholic Record Society has in preparation for issue to its members an edition of the diary covering all those matters of Catholic interest to which it refers. The editorial work on this has necessitated a study of the Mawhood family. The following pages summarise the results of that research as far as it has gone. There are a number of errors in Gillow’s account to be corrected.

In his biography of Bishop Challoner (vol.II. p.272), Canon Burton states that the Bishop died at 25 Gloucester Street (now Old Gloucester Street, Queen Square, Holborn). He does not give his authority, and it may have been an oral tradition. J. P. de Castro, in his Gordon Riots (1926) p.45, makes the same statement, probably on Burton's authority.