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Gillows’ Furnishings for Catholic Chapels, 1750-1800
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
When Catholic Emancipation came at last in 1829 it was the culmination of half a century’s agitation. The first landmark was the Relief Act of 1778, which repealed most of the penal legislation of the 1690S, and the second was the Act of 1791, which, in effect, removed penal restraint on Catholic worship in England. Of course, both the anti-Catholic hysteria of the Gordon Riots which followed the 1778 Act and the repression after the rebellions of 1715 and ’45 have remained vivid in the national memory. On the other hand, we ought to recall how Defoe observed that Durham was full of Catholics, Svho live peaceably and disturb nobody, and nobody them; for we … saw them going as publickly to mass as the Dissenters did on other days to their meetinghouse.’ After the death of the Old Pretender in 1766 the Pope recognized George III de facto and ordered the Catholic Church to pay no royal honours to ‘Charles III’. The penal laws on church-going were now only lightly enforced and then usually at the behest of informers, until the 1778 Act frustrated them, since it was no longer illegal for a priest to say Mass. Thomas Weld of Lulworth Castle (the head of probably the richest Catholic family in the kingdom) maintained six chaplains in different houses; his ability to do so must have been helped by the fact that the Lulworth estate had not paid the double land tax, for which it was theoretically liable, since 1725.* Mr Weld deliberately flouted the remaining archaic laws by building a handsome chapel in his grounds (‘truly elegant,—a Pantheon in miniature,—and ornamented with immense expense and richness’, said Fanny Burney).
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1992
References
1 See, in particular, Bossy, John, The English Catholic Community (London, 1978), pp. 295, 330 Google Scholar; Little, Bryan, Catholic Churches since 1623 (London, 1966 Google Scholar).
2 Defoe, Daniel, A Tour through England and Wales (Everyman edn, nd), 2, p. 249 Google Scholar, cited in Little, , Catholic Churches, p. 30 Google Scholar.
3 Little, , Catholic Churches, p. 28 Google Scholar.
4 Aveling, J. C. H., The Handle and the Axe (London, 1976), p. 314 Google Scholar.
5 Berkeley, Joan, Lulworth and the Welds (Gillingham, Dorset, 1971), p. 161 Google Scholar.
6 Ibid., p. 181.
7 Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay, ed. by her niece, Barrett, Charlotte (London, nd), 3, p. 201 Google Scholar.
8 Berkeley, , Lulworth, p. 169 Google Scholar.
9 Bilsborrow, Bishop, quoted in Blundell, F. O., Old Catholic Lancashire, 3 vols (London, 1925–44), 2, p. 148 Google Scholar.
10 Westminster City Libraries, Archives Department (Victoria branch) [hereafter W: the Gillow archive is numbered 344, which is to be understood before all citations], 95/622, 649; 96/1128.
11 W 16/1183:96/963, April 1793.
12 As bookcase: Mrs Buder: W 17/1805; with arched pediment, Gillows London, 10 July 1790.
13 W 95/649; 14/100-105. William Glendonwyn of Glendonwyn, near Carlingwark, Kirkudbrightshire.
14 A tabernacle dated February 1809 still retained a classical oudine, but with Gothic touches, e.g. cusping round the Sacred Monogram and crocketed pinnacles above classical columns: W 99/1855. Compare an altar of 1791 with almost baroque curved ends and ‘IHS’ within a heart on the front, tabernacle with dome, cross and candlesticks, supplied to John Giffard, Nerquis, near Mold, W 95/973; 172/337. See also a tabernacle supplied 1 May 1773 for £7 17s. 6d., with carved columns, part gilt, ogee dome, gilt ball and cross, enclosed by doors, with two drawers, sent to the London shop, W 4/55; an altar frame and tabernacle (inlaid steps, wheat-ear motif, dome with grapes, spandrels with cherubs, carved and gilt dove, carved capitals, door to be inlaid in London), 23 Sept. 1782, W 8/399; cf. door of tabernacle to be inlaid in London for Mr James Farrer, Chancery Lane, W 8/395; tabernacle with fluted columns, hipped pediment, for The Revd Dr Rigby, 8 Dec. 1794, £5, W 17/1822; altar, tabernacle and steps, with purplewood columns, carved and gilt bases and capitals, and four candlesticks, to the London shop for Johnson, 18 gns, W 18/2290; tabernacle and steps, with two purplewood columns, gilt capitals and bases burnished, pediment, Tuscan cornice, lined with rose silk, inlaid door, gilt and burnished mouldings, £6 10s. od., for The Revd Mr Baines of Garstang, W 19/2687; supplied to the London shop for Mr Weeble: altar and tabernacle, W 8/307; six carved gilt candlesticks for same, W 8/310 (15 Apr. 1782 and 22 Apr. 1782); inlaid altar and tabernacle like Weeble’s for Mrs Hennage, 20 May 1782, W 8/327.
15 McCarthy, Michael, The Origins of the Gothic Revival (London, 1987), p. 165 Google Scholar.
16 For example, ‘a handsome mahogany Roman altar with Tabernacle and steps, inlaid and varnished’ for Sir William Gerard in 1796, W 19/2440-55; cf. the frontispiece to Bossy, English Catholic Community.
17 W 163/118.
18 Billington, R. N. and Brownbill, J., St Peter’s Lancaster (London, 1910), p. 85 Google Scholar and passim; VCH Lancashire, 8 (1914), p. 47; W 9/1092, 968-9, 1000, 1039, 1041.
19 Billington, and Brownbill, , St Peter’s, pp. 85, 214–15, 217 Google Scholar.
20 The Revd Dunn, E. G., ‘The Return of Catholicism to East Greenwich’, Transactions of the Greenwich and Lewisham Antiquarian Society, 7 (1961-3), pp. 160 Google Scholarff.
21 W 97/1149, 1154, 1184; Romney had drawn a design for an altar and tabernacle in 1791: W 95/793.
22 Survey of London, 39, The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, part i (London, 1977), p. 101.
23 Kelly, B. W., Historical Notes on English Catholic Missions (London, 1907), p. 270 Google Scholar, citing Gillow, Joseph, A Literary and Biographical History, or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics [London, 1885–1902], 2, p. 484 Google Scholar. Gillow’s dictionary is to be used with caution, especially where his own family is concerned.
24 ‘Mr [Richard] Gillow, Lancaster, £5; Mr Robert Gillow, Lancaster, £2 2.0.; Miss Gillow, Lancaster, [illegible]; Mr George Gillow, London, £10; Mrs Gillow, Margate, £10; Mr Richard Gillow, London, £5 5.0.’ These extracts from a MS book at Thanet Central Library, Margate, were kindly supplied by Father Corcoran.
25 Not St Mary Abbots as in Gillow, , Dictionary of English Catholics, 2, p. 484 Google Scholar; he also regularly confuses Richard Gillow I of Lancaster with his son Richard II of London. The history of this church is given accurately in Survey of London, 37, Northern Kensington (London, 1973), p. 68. See also Kelly, , Historical Notes, p. 233 Google Scholar: ‘Mr Gillow and some friends contributed £500…’.
26 Sarah, Markham, John Loveday of Caversham, 1711-1789 (Wilton, 1984), p. 164 Google Scholar.
27 Williams, Richard, Mapledurham House (Mapledurham, 1977), p. 7 Google Scholar.
28 The altars at Milton and Mapledurham have or had in common sets of painted frontals for the various liturgical seasons: at Milton these are still stored in a ‘cupboard’ which opens at the side of the altar; at Mapledurham one has strayed to the Hall. Evidence for Gillows’ responsibility at Mapledurham is in Michael Blount’s letterbook now at Stonor (information kindly given by the Hon. Georgina Stonor). See also n. 29 below.
29 The Gillow bills and letters at Stonor are, with the rest of the extensive archive there, presently closed under the trust established by the will of the late Sherman Stonor, 6th Lord Camoys, and will remain closed for some years to come. I am indebted to Georgina Stonor for the information on which this section is based.
30 Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys, ed. Climenson, Emily J. (London, 1899), pp. 345–6 Google Scholar; Stonor [guidebook, nd], pp. 14-15.
31 For the correct succession [cf. Mrs Stapleton, Bryan, A History of the Post-Reformation Catholic Missions in Oxfordshire (London, 1906 Google Scholar), and O’Sullivan, Biddy, The Two Britwelk (privately printed, Britwell Salome, 1969), p. 61 Google Scholar, which introduce an extra generation, making Thomas Weld-Simeon succeeded Sir E. Simeon in 1768, whereas he did not survive his uncle], see Berkeley, , Lulworth, p. 127 Google Scholar.
32 W 22/304; 3/154; 3/320.
33 W 22/210, 220.
34 W 22/156.
35 W 22/189.
36 [ Holt, Father T. G., , S.J.,] ‘Church Furniture for Stonyhurst in 1770’, The Stonyhurst Magazine, 35, no. 433 (Oct 1966), pp. 25–6 Google Scholar.
37 W 166/112; altar fixed Oct. 1771: 3/344:22/431.
38 W 166/75.
39 For example, W 8/307, 310 (Mr Weeble); 8/327 (Mrs Hennage); 17/1753 (Walsh Potter); 17/1822 (The Revd Dr T. Rigby).
40 W 174/44; also 20-30, 159, 175, 320-1, 331:98/1562-1575.
41 W 98/1575 a-f.
42 W 174/201V, 196. None of these ornaments is known to survive, but the handsome church (1796) at Brindle St Joseph’s does. It was restored in 1986-7 under the leadership of Father Thomas Loughlin, O.S.B., to whom I am indebted for this information.
43 W 169/118.
44 W 8/623.
45 W 8/678.
46 W 98/1667.
47 Cf. Sir William Gerard: pedestal and cross supplied, ivory crucifix repaired, W 9/974, 170/580, dated 21 and 29 Dec. 1784; gilt cross for top of tabernacle and gilt image on metal sent from London for the Dowager Lady Gerard, 19/2654.
48 W 171/189.
49 W 71/2061194/109; 171/213.
50 W 171/213; 11/2601:94/109.
51 W 12/2601:94/230.
52 W 18/2102:97/1184.
53 Cf. Gillows to James Maxwell, of Kirkconnell, near Dumfries: they had showed several altar designs to Frederick Maxwell, W 173/27.
54 Mr J. Eyston informed me that his brother has Gillow bills at East Hendred, but I have not seen them. 1 am indebted to many people who have kindly helped me in die preparation of this article, especially the Hon. Georgina Stonor, Mr J. and Lady Anne Eyston, Mr T. Eyston, the late Mrs Marjorie Mockler, The Revd Geoffrey Scott, O.S.B., the archivist at the Westminster City Library Archives Department (Victoria branch), Miss M. Swarbrick and her colleagues; and to the authorities at Stonyhurst College for help and for permission to reproduce plate 3.