Edward Elgar and His World (9 page)

24. Mary Heimann,
Catholic Devotion in Victorian England
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 10.

25. The typical brief description of Ultramontanism in England focuses on the sweeping power of this “Second Spring”: “Devotional practice was also undergoing a change at this time. The eighteenth-century Catholic tradition had been contemplative and restrained, but as a group the ‘Old Catholics' were being superseded by ultramontanes who wished to establish new devotional styles and approaches to the faith. The focus of ultramontanism was the Church in Rome. It emphasized the centrality of Papal authority and the Pope as head of the Church worldwide. The hierarchical structure gave priests and bishops greater control over their congregations. Although this was necessary in large urban parishes, it limited the influence of the laity. The taste for continental Catholicism was also expressed in devotional styles and outward fittings. Where the Old Catholics were reserved, the ultramontanes were extrovert. They favoured churches filled with statues, holy pictures, candles and incense; priests wearing vestments; elaborate processions; and devotions to the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacred Heart. Religion for Old Catholics was a personal and meditative experience; for ultramontanes it was colorful and emotional, and emphasized a group identity that was part of the Universal Church.” Suzanne Roberts,
Catholic Childhoods: Catholic Elementary Education in York, 1850–1914
(York: Borthwick Publications, 2001), 13–14.

26. Heimann,
Catholic Devotion
, 68.
The Garden of the Soul: A Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions for Christians Who, Living in the World, Aspire to Devotion
by Bishop Richard Challoner was first published in 1740 and reprinted frequently until the twentieth century. Heimann notes that its popularity was so great it became a shorthand language—“Garden-of-the-Soul Catholics” meant the Old English Catholics, as opposed to the recent converts or Irish-Catholic immigrants (72)—and that attempts to “convert” them to Ultramontane purposes by the English-Catholic hierarchy failed (81).

27. Roberts,
Catholic Childhoods
, 18.

28. Percy Young,
Elgar, Newman, and
The Dream of Gerontius
: In the Tradition of English Catholicism
(Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), 84.

29. “Dame school” is a generic description for any working-class school. See Jonathan Rose,
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 151.

30. Basil Maine identifies Polly Ryler as Elgar's piano teacher. See
Elgar: His Life and Works
(London: G. Bell & Sons, 1933), 1:9; and Michael Kennedy,
Portrait of Elgar
, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987; repr. 1995), 19.

31. “Popular Education,”
The Rambler
6, no. 32 (August 1850): 101–2.

32. “Popular Education,”
The Rambler
10, no. 55 (July 1852): 8.

33. As Suzanne Roberts notes, “Education was
the
Catholic issue par excellence… . Together, church and school provided a distinct Catholic culture and identity to protect the Catholic population from Protestantism and instill in them Catholic values. The schools, while delivering the rudiments of an elementary education, primarily existed, as far as the Church was concerned, to teach the Catholic Faith.” See Roberts,
Catholic Childhoods
, 9.

34. Moore,
Elgar: A Creative Life
, 17.

35. Daughters of the Heart of Mary archives, Wimbledon, quoted in Fr. Brian Doolan,
St. George's, Worcester: 1590–1999
(Birmingham: Archdiocese of Birmingham Historical Commission, 1999), 11. The information in this paragraph is largely from this source, 10–11; Doolan had access to archives that were unavailable at the time of writing.

36. Ibid., 16.

37. Eileen Hodgson, “The Berkeley Family of Spetchley Park (Part 2),” in
The Worcestershire Recusant: The Journal of the Worcestershire Catholic History Society
16 (December 1970): 28.

38. Letter of Sister Anne Cunningham, archivist of the Sisters of St. Paul, Birmingham, 8 January 2006. It is usually stated in the biographical literature that when Elgar attended the school, it was still being run by the Sisters of St. Paul; see, for instance, Young's
Elgar, Newman, and
Gerontius, 83; and Moore,
Elgar: A Creative Life
, 35, n. 4. Moore's footnote states: “The sisters [
sic
] of St. Paul taught there until 1870–1, when they went out to nurse the wounded in the Franco-Russian War… . After that date teaching at Spetchley was in the hands of seculars.” A source that might shed light on this discrepancy, a manuscript history titled “Records of Spetchley Parish,” by Fr. A. L. Delerue, written before he left the area in 1876 and still held in the Berkeley Family Archives, was unavailable at the time of writing.

39. Letter from David H. J. Smith, archivist to the Berkeley family, 25 February 2006.

40. Moore,
Elgar: A Creative Life
, 37.

41. Ibid., 37–38.

42. Census records, Parish of St. John's, Schedule 82, 1871. Littleton House seems to have been used as a school for some time before Reeve's arrival. The transcript of the 1851 census housed at the Worcestershire History Centre lists a school run by Walter Caton (Curate of Powick and Schoolmaster), five servants, twenty students aged eight to fifteen, an assistant schoolmaster, a wife, a son, and a sister-in-law. Census records, Parish of St. John's, f. 46–47 (transcript), 1851.

43. Maine,
Elgar
, 1:11.

44.
The Catholic Directory, Ecclesiastical Register, and Almanac
(London: Burns and Oates, 1861), 249. Similar advertisements may be found in the issues of 1862 (228) and 1863 (224). By the time of Elgar's attendance, Reeve's advertisement was considerably shortened. These advertisements refer less to the instruction at the school, concentrating instead on the “large and airy rooms and extensive grounds for recreation.”
Catholic Directory
, 1869, 329.

45. Roberts,
Catholic Childhoods
, 20.

46. Robert J. Buckley,
Sir Edward Elgar
(New York: J. Lane, 1905), 8. Most biographers mention this anecdote either when discussing
The Apostles
or Elgar's education at the hands of Reeve. See, for instance, Diana McVeagh,
Edward Elgar: His Life and Music
(London: M. M. Dent & Sons, 1955), 5; and Percy Young's
Elgar, O.M.: The Study of a Musician
(London: Purnell Book Services, 1973), 34–35.

47. Roberts,
Catholic Childhoods
, 17. See also
The Tablet
, 21 August 1869, 369: “The priest of necessity is the real master of the school, and the teacher is valuable in proportion as he knows how to play second fiddle and exercise his own powers in harmony with his superior's will.”

48. According to Moore, Waterworth was a great intellect kept from leaving Worcester because of delicate health; see Moore,
Elgar: A Creative Life
, 15. A number of priests filled the other position at St. George's during Elgar's school years, changing frequently. Positively identifying these priests is difficult because the
Catholic Directory
often supplies more than one first name: the 1862 issue notes the presence of Fr. James Lomax as the second priest at the parish (96) and the 1863 directory names a Fr. Walter Lomax (85).

49. Thompson Cooper and Leo Gooch, “Waterworth, William,” in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

50. Until 1871, Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews were not permitted to matriculate from Oxford or Cambridge universities. Some attended as students during the nineteenth century, but they were not allowed to take degrees. Nineteenth-century Catholics could receive higher education at St. Mary's, Oscott and University College, London. On Waterworth as confessor to Manning, see Young,
Elgar, Newman, and
Gerontius, 83.

51. Moore,
Elgar: A Creative Life
, 37. Elgar cared enough about this votive picture to save it, and it can be seen at the Elgar Birthplace Museum. An enlarged copy of it is in Jerrold Northrop Moore,
Spirit of England: Edward Elgar in His World
(London: Heinemann, 1984), 54.

52. Challoner,
The Garden of the Soul
(London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1945), 188–89.

53. Doolan,
St. George's, Worcester
, 17. Moore, using quotations from a Jesuit obituary in the magazine
Letters & Notices
16 (1883): 150–53, states that “on account of his learning and his kindness and zeal, [Waterworth] was much esteemed by the Catholics and Protestants.” See Moore,
Elgar: A Creative Life
, 15.

54. Initially organized by Fr. Herbert Vaughan (consecrated as bishop of Salford in 1872; made cardinal by Leo XIII in 1893), the Catholic Truth Society was reorganized in 1872 by the convert James Britten, who continued Vaughan's mission of publishing cheap pamphlets to inform the poor of Britain about elements of the “truth” of Catholicism in the nineteenth century. The organization still exists today, and on its website,
http://www.ctsonline.org.uk/CTS_history.htm
(accessed April 21, 2006), a largely celebratory history section does not mention the high propaganda value of articles like those written by Waterworth.

55. William Waterworth, S.J.,
The Popes and the English Church
(London: Catholic Truth Society, [1870]), 1.

56. Ibid., 19.

57. William J. Waterworth, S.J.,
England and Rome: Or, The History of the Religious Connection Between England and the Holy See, from the year 179 to the Commencement of the Anglican Reformation in 1534. With Observations on the General Question of the Supremacy of the Roman Pontiffs
(London: Burns & Lambert, 1854), 121, 377–78, 380–81; and
Origin and Developments of Anglicanism: Or, A History of the Liturgies, Homilies, Articles, Bibles, Principles and Governmental System of the Church of England
(London: Burns and Lambert, 1854), v–vi, 388. See also Waterworth,
The Jesuits: Or, An Examination of the Origin, Progress, Principles, and Practices of the Society of Jesus; With Observations on the Leading Accusations of the Enemies of the Order
(London: Charles Dolman; Hereford: W. Phillips; Liverpool: P. Hogan, 1852), 51–52.

58. William Waterworth, S.J.,
Queen Elizabeth v. The Lord Chancellor; Or, A History of the Prayer Book of the Church of England. In Relation to the Purchas Judgment
(London: Burns, Oates and Company, 1871), 3.

59. See, for instance, George Macaulay Trevelyan,
History of England
(London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1926).

60. An example of revisionist history that echoes Leicester's views is Eamon Duffy,
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992).

61. See Richard Smith, “Elgar, Dot and the Stroud Connection—Part One,”
Elgar Society Journal
14, no. 5 (July 2006): 14–20. Although most biographical sources give Elgar's sister's name as “Helen Agnes,” the baptismal register shows her name as “Ellen Agnes.”

62. Hubert Leicester, “How the Faith Was Preserved in Worcestershire: A Paper Read by Alderman Leicester, K.C.S.G., at the Eucharistic Congress at Droitwich, 2nd of August, 1932” (Worcester and London: Ebenezer Bayliss & Son, [1932]), 4.

63. Leicester's own avatar was that of a paternal “Gentleman Catholic.” He gave Carice Elgar a missal upon her confirmation in 1907; letter of Carice Elgar to Hubert Leicester, 24 May 1907. Leicester also mounted and displayed a letter from Bishop W. B. Ullathorne, sent to his father, 28 December 1886. Worcestershire County Records Office, 705:185 BA 8185/1.

64. Initially a journal owned by the Catholic laity,
The Tablet
was bought in 1868 by Fr. Herbert Vaughan, later Cardinal Manning's replacement as head of the English Catholic Church. Under his editorial policies
The Tablet
became a primary voice in the discussion regarding Ultramontanist topics such as papal infallibility and the immaculate conception. See Norman,
English Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century
, 360–61.

65.
The Tablet
, 1 June 1878, 698. See also Young,
Elgar, O.M.
, 42. Young believes that the advertisement might have been placed through the auspices of Fr. Waterworth or the Leicester family.

66. Hubert Leicester,
Notes on Catholic Worcester, Compiled … for the Centenary of the Opening of St. George's Church, Sansome Place
(Worcester: Trinity Press, [c. 1929]), 30.

67. A general discussion of Elgar's sacred music, both Catholic and Protestant, may be found in John Allison,
Edward Elgar: Sacred Music
(Bridgend: Seren, 1994); and in Butt, “Roman Catholicism,” 106–19.

68. Challoner,
Garden of the Soul
, 128–35.

69. “Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” in
Catholic Encyclopedia
(New York: Appleton, 1907–1914).

70. Heimann,
Catholic Devotion
, 44.

71. “Devotions to the Sacred Heart,” in Challoner,
Garden of the Soul
, 131–32. In a way, this service reads much like the litanies Elgar presented in his redaction of Part 1 of
Gerontius
(rehearsal number 64).

72. Allison,
Sacred Music
, 52–54.

73. Hodgkins, “Providence and Art,” 6. Since Elgar was new to London, he might have attended church fifty times in order to “try out” the priests at each institution and decide which clerics best suited his idea of doctrine.

74. Moore,
Elgar: A Creative Life
, 352.

75. See McGuire, “Elgar, Judas, and the Theology of Betrayal,” 271 n. 109.

76. Reports on all three oratorios preserved at the Elgar Birthplace Museum include discussions of them in the Catholic periodicals
The Tablet, Truth, The Catholic News, The Catholic Columbian
, and others. Elgar Birthplace Museum, cuttings files, vols. 5–9.