Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/368

 OSCOTT

336.

OSCOTT

of the clorcy and faithful, suppUed the means; and in less than tliree years a stately Gothie pile arose on an eminence two miles from the old eolU-gc. The new edifice is situated at the extreme north of Warwick- shire, some six miles from the centre of Birmingham, and was built on a piece of ground overgrown with heather and gorse at the edge of the Sutton ColdHeld common. The name of Oscott has been transferred to the new site, previously associated with the name of Jordan's Grave. Bishop Wiseman succeeded Weedall in 1840. His reputation as a srhoj.'ir and his knowl- edge of men and alTairs made liis :[]i|Miiiitment in the early days of the Oxford Muxcnicn! nmsl ojiportune. During the forties an<l onwurds, Oscott afforded the incoming clergymen from the Kslablishment a wel- come, a home, and a place of study. In those years we meet with the names of Le Page l{cnouf, St. George Mivart, John Brande Morris, H. U. Walker, T. Wil- kinson, D. H. Haigh, C. Cholmondely, E. Estcourt, B. Smith etc. Augustus Welby Pugin, himself a con- vert, taught and worked at Oscott. The saintly Pas- sionist Father Dominic was received there when he came over from Italy to convert England in Novem- ber, 1840. Father Ignatius Spencer resided and exer- cised a fruitful apostolate in the college from 1839 to 1846. Cardinal Newman referred gratefully to the fact that just after he had been received into the Church by Father Dominic at Littlemore, he "at once found himself welcomed and housed at Oscott." In February, 1846, Newman and his community re- moved to Old O.scott at the suggestion of Bishop Wiseman. Newman called the old college "Mary- vale", a name which it still bears. There they re- mained till 1849.

Henry F. C. Logan was president from 1847 to 1848, John Moore from 1848 to 1853, and Mgr Weedall from 1853 to 1859. The first Provincial Synod of the re- stored hierarchy of Westminster took place at Oscott in the summer of 1852, on which occasion Dr. New- man preached the sermon entitled "The Second Spring". The second and third Provincial Synods were hkewise held there in 1855 and 1859. After the presidency of George Morgan (1859-60) a distin- guished period in the life of the college opened in the autumn of 1S60, w-ith the appointment of James Spen- cer Northcote. A scholar, a gentleman, an ideal edu- cator, brought up amid the culture of Oxford, and since his conversion in 1846 saturated with the spirit of ancient Christian Rome, he was eminently the man for the time. He developed the scholastic work of the college, and brought it into line with the non-Catholic pubhc schools. In 1863 Cardinal Wiseman and Mgr. Manning took part in the celebration of the silver ju- bilee of the new college. After Northcote's retirement in 1877 on account of ill health, John Hawksford (1877-80), Edward Acton (lSSO-4), and Mgr. J. H. Souter (1SS5-9) carried on and expanded the tradition they had inherited. But a new fa.shion, the memory doubtless of the Fitzgerald v. Northcote trial, and of the two outbreaks of sickness in the .sixties, and the opening of the Oratory School at Edgbaston (May, lS59j under the direction of Dr. Newman, told against them. The roll of students declined steadily, and not- withstanding the enthusiastic celebration of the golden jubilee of the new college in 1888, the venerable insti- tution was closed in July, 1889, to be opened in the September following as the ecclesiastical seminary for the Diocese of Birmingham.

The high prestige which St. Mary's College enjoyed for so long a time is due to the number of distinguished families of England, Ireland, and other countries, whose sons were educated within its walls, and to the solid piety and fine courteous tone by which Oscotians were recognised. Oscott counts among its alumni one cardinal and twenty bishops, many members of Par- liament, and others distinguished in the diplomatic and military services.

In accord with the movement promoted by the early provincial synods of Westminster, Bishop tlllathorne established in 187:5 the Birmingham diocesan semi- nary at Olton, a few miles south of Birmingham. He placed the Rev. Edward Ilsley (now bishop of the dio- cese) over it as rector, while he himself personahy di- rected its .spirit. The institution llciurislied, thongh the number of students averaged but twenty. Mean- while Oscott maintained its own school of philoso- jihers and theologians. Oscott, like Olton, suffered from financial strain. With a bold stroke Bishop Ils- l(>y closed O.scott as a mix(-d college, sold the seminary buildings and estate, and gathered all his seminarists and teaching stall' into the one greater seminary of >St. Mary's, Oscott. The new institution began with thirty-six students in September, 1889, vmder the rec- torship of the bishop. Subjects from other dioceses arrived, and in a year or two a maximum of eighty- six was reached. This success, combined with the ad- vantages of a central position, a splendid site, commo- dious buildings, a beautiful chapel, and a rich library, led in 1897 to the conversion of Oscott, on the urgent initiative of Cardinal Vaughan, into a central seminary for seven of the midland and southern dioceses of Eng- land, with Mgr. H. Parkinson as rector. The institution did its work well and progressively until the death of Cardinal Vaughan, when anewpolicy of concentration of diocesan resources commended itself to the ecclesias- tical authorities, and the dissolution of the central sem- inary followed in 1909. From that date Oscott has continued its earlier work as the diocesan seminary, though admitting, as had been its custom, subjects from other dioceses. In the Birmingham seminary the lectures in theology and philosophy have invari- ably been given in Latin, and the usual scholastic dis- cussions have supplemented the lectures. The course has been gradually improved by the extension of phi- losophy to three years, by the addition of two years of physical science in connexion with philo.sophy. Ascet- ical theology has been taught regularly since 1873. Hebrew, Greek, Elocution, the history of philosophy and of religion, and also social science take their proper places in the curriculum. "Recreative" lectures by outsiders are frequently given, and the "Exchange" lectures, delivered alternately at Stonyhurst and at Oscott by the professors of each institution, have pro- vided fruitful opportunities of intercourse.

The interior aspect of the college is like a glimpse of the old Catholic world. The windows of the cloisters and refectory are blazoned with the armorial bearings of ancient Catholic families. The walls are adorned with 2f)0 oil paintings of religious subjects, mainly the gift of John, sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbury. Its libra- ries of 30,000 volumes include the "Harvington" li- brary, dating back to the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury, the " Marini " library, purchased in Rome for the college in 1839 at the cost of £4,000, a valuable collec- tion of early printed books, early books on the iMiglish Martyrs, the "Kirk" collection, MSS. and pamphlets, and the "Forbes" collection of Oriental and other memoirs, consisting in all of sixty large folio volumes. Among the numerous treasures of ecclesia-stical art may be mentioned the collection of embroidery of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, the silver-gilt monstrance by an Antwerp artist of 1547, valued at £2,000, and the massive bronze lectern (early sixteenth century) from St. Peter's Louvain, which is an artistic achievement of the highest excel- lence.

TheOscotian, 182,')-28, new series, 1881-88. third series, 1900; HusENBETH. The Hi.iloru of Sedgley Park School (London, 1S56); Idem, Life of Mgr. Wenlall (London, 1800); Idem, Life of Milner (Dublin, 1862); Greaney, The Buildings, Museum etc., of St. Mari/'s College, Oscolt (Birmingham, 1899); Idem, A Catalogue of the Works of Art and Antiquity of .S(. Mary's College (Birming- ham, 1880); Parkinson. SI. Mary's College. Oscott in The Catholic University Bulletin (March and April, 1909); Ward, The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman (London, 1897).

Henry Parkinson.