The ‘Staffordshire Creed’ and 18th century pamphlet wars and threats of schism

A carved portrait at Oscott College of Father John Kirk … he was censured for his views on the ‘Staffordshire Creed’ before he moved to Lichfield in 1801

Patrick Comerford

I am continuing to dip in and out of Michael Greenslade’s Catholic Staffordshire, and enjoying his vignettes of church history in Staffordshire up to the 1850s.

It is fascinating that, as legislation for Catholic Emancipation was being rolled out slowly in the late 18th and early 19th century, the question of oaths of loyalty divided the Catholic clergy in Staffordshire from the bishops. The so-called ‘Staffordshire Creed’ opened a pamphlet war and even drew accusations of heresy.

The division was almost of schismatic proportions, and even delayed the appointment of one bishop, but also led to the appointment of Father John Kirk, who built new churches in Lichfield and Tamworth, and changes at Oscott College, which became one of the leading centres of Catholic education in England.

A Catholic Relief Act was passed in England in 1778, repealing the Act of 1700, and the Irish Relief Act followed in 1779. A second Relief Bill was published in England in 1789.

As the Bill was being debated in England, English Roman Catholics were anxious to convince their neighbours that they had nothing to fear from Catholics. The Catholic Committee, a lay pressure group, devised an oath swearing allegiance to the House of Hanover and repudiating any claims that the Pope had power to depose the monarch or that the Pope’s spiritual powers could interfere with the nation’s constitution.

The Catholic clergy in Staffordshire became champions of the proposed new oath, and in 1790 they drew up an address supporting the Bill with the new oath. The address, signed by all 15 Roman Catholic priests in Staffordshire, was drawn up by Joseph Berington of Oscott.

The address was sent to Bishop Thomas Joseph Talbot (1727-1797), the Vicar Apostolic for the Midlands, and his coadjutor bishop, Charles Berington (1748-1798), a former member of the Catholic Committee, who had been consecrated a bishop in 1786.

However, the Bill had already been condemned by the Catholic bishops in England, then known as Vicars Apostolic. However, Bishop Talbot and his brother, James Robert Talbot (1726-1790), also a bishop and vicar apostolic of the London district, declined to publish this condemnation, fearing it would damage Catholic unity. The Talbot bishops were younger brothers of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury.

The clash of views between the bishops and the Staffordshire clergy soon stirred up a pamphlet war.

In effect, the Staffordshire clergy were opposing absolutism in their Church, whether it was exercised by the Pope or by the Vicars Apostolic. But Charles Walmesley (1722-1797), one of the bishops and the Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, dismissed their views and declaring them heretical, labelling them the ‘Staffordshire Creed.’

Eventually, a simple oath of allegiance used in the Irish Relief Act in 1779 was included in another English Relief Act when it was passed in 1791. The Act restored freedom of worship for Catholics, provided their chapels were registered. Immediately 13 chapels were registered in Staffordshire: Ashley, Black Ladies, Cobridge, Cresseell, Hoar Cross, Longbirch, Moseley, Oscott, Sedgley Park, St Austin’s Stafford, Swynnerton, Tixall, and the Great House Wolverhampton.

John Kirk, who had been the chaplain at Pipe Hall from 1788, was sacked by Thomas Weld in 1792 as one of the priests who supported the ‘Staffordshire Creed.’

Joseph Berington, who was seen as the most extreme exponent of the ‘Staffordshire Creed,’ left Oscott in 1793 to become chaplain to Sir John Throckmorton in Buckland, Berkshire.

Bishop Talbot soon set up a new school and seminary in the large house at Oscott. His plan received support from John Kirk, but was opposed by three of his fellow bishops, who feared the influence of the clergy who had supported the ‘Staffordshire Creed,’ who would ‘have the means of doing irreparable mischief.’

Bishop Thomas Talbot died in 1795 while taking the waters near Bristol. His coadjutor bishop, Charles Berington, was regarded as being too close to the Staffordshire clergy and was denied permission to officiate at his own bishop’s Requiem Mass.

Eventually, Berington succeeded Talbot, but only after signing a retraction of his views in October 1797 at a meeting of the other bishops at the Swan in Wolverhampton. Berington appointed John Kirk, who had been sacked at Pipe Hall for his support of the ‘Staffordshire Creed,’ as his chaplain and secretary in 1797.

But the letters giving Berington permission to officiate as a bishop were delayed in Rome and were only sent to England after much debate. It was too late: Berington died three days after they were dispatched, on 8 June 1798, while riding home from Sedgley Park, on the roadside between Wolverhampton and Longbirch. He was buried in the chancel of Brewood Church.

Staffordshire got a new bishop with the appointment of Gregory Stapleton in 1801. By then, however, most of the priests who had supported the ‘Staffordshire Creed’ had either left Staffordshire or died. Stapleton tried to settle the dispute with the remaining priests. He secured a retraction from John Kirk, Thomas Southworth of Sedgley Park, James Tasker of Creswell, and John Roe of Black Ladies, and secured a partial retraction from John Carter of Wolverhampton.

Stapleton appointed John Kirk as the resident priest in Lichfield in 1801, with a stipend of £60 a year, with responsibility too for the Tamworth area. Kirk would eventually build Holy Cross Church on Upper John Street, Lichfield, and bought the site for Saint John’s Church off Aldergate in Tamworth.

John Carter of Wolverhampton, the last of the priests to support the ‘Staffordshire Creed,’ summed up his position in his will in 1802: ‘I conscientiously, Domine tu scisti, refused to sign away the canonical liberties of the Christian clergy and obliquely to wound the reputation of two beloved superiors.’

As for Oscott College, it moved in 1838 to a new site that came to be known as New Oscott, near Sutton Coldfield and 15 km south of Lichfield. The new buildings were designed by Augustus Pugin and Joseph Potter and form a Grade II* listed building.

Three Comerford brothers from Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, went to school at Oscott in the 1870s and 1880s: Edward Comerford (1864-1942), who was there in 1876-1882; James Comerford (1868-1924), at Oscott in 1880-1881; and Owen James Comerford (1869-1945), in 1880-1883.

Oscott College became a symbol of the rebirth of Catholicism in England in the 19th century. Today it is the seminary of the Archdiocese of Birmingham and one of the three seminaries of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Inside Holy Cross Church, Lichfield … built by John Kirk, one of the supporters of the ‘Staffordshire Creed’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Two Comberford wills tell of family jealousy and strife in the 18th century

The Comberford Monument in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, gives misleading information on Robert Comberford, his wife, Catherine, and their descendants (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

In my many talks and papers over the years, I have often told the stories of the last Comberfords at Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth.

In recent research, I have across the marriage of one of the granddaughters of Robert Comberford and his wife Catherine (Bates) of Comberford. The details in the wills of both Catherine (Bates) Comberford and Catherine (Brooke) Purcell offer new insights into the problems this branch of the family faced with division, jealousy and family strife, as it lost its last grips on its last remaining property holdings in Comberford and Tamworth in the 18th century.

Catherine (Bates) Comberford was the widow of Robert Comberford, who had managed to recover Comberford Hall in 1656, despite the vicissitudes of the English Civil War. Robert died in 1669 – not in 1671, as stated on the memorial in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth.

Despite the misleading claims on the Comberford memorial, Robert’s widow Catherine and her children continued to live on at Comberford Hall into the 18th century. She made her will on 18 January 1715, and states that she is living in Staffordshire and a widow.

Catherine and Robert Comberford were the parents of two daughters: Mary, who married Thomas Giffard and who died in 1683; and Anne, who married Thomas Brooke of Madeley, who lived at Comberford. Thomas Brooke was the son of Thomas and Anne (Nevill) Brooke and the grandson of Sir Basil Brooke, the inventor of iron smelting and the so-called father of the industrial revolution.

Catherine's two daughters, Mary and Anne, predeceased their mother, and so in her will Catherine Comberford, having outlived her daughters, names her grandchildren, providing interesting insights into her family and how they held on to the remnants of the Comberford estates.

In her will, Catherine leaves the bulk of her estate to her two granddaughters, Catherine Brooke, the daughter of Thomas Brooke, and Mary Grosvenor, wife of Sherrington Grosvenor of Tamworth. She leaves these two granddaughters all her land and property situated in Wigginton in the parish of Tamworth, Staffordshire, which she had originally bought from William Brampton. She also leaves land and property in Hopwas, Staffordshire, then occupied by Henry Ashmore, and a small meadow in Cawford Meadow within the Parish of Tamworth.

She leaves to her grandson John Brooke land called the Wall Furlonge in Tamworth, which she bought from the late James Pritchard and by then occupied by William Pritchard. However, she gives this land to John Brooke ‘on the express condition’ that within two years of her decease he pays £40 to help his two sisters, Catherine Brooke and Mary Grosvenor, so that they may use that money to pay her debts and legacies.

If John Brooke fails to do this, Catherine insists, then he must give the land she has given him to his two sisters. She has another property at Hopwas, which she had bought from Francis Astbury and which is then occupied by Thomas Astbury. She gives this to her two granddaughters, Catherine Brooke and Mary Grosvenor.

She also gives both her granddaughters £1,000, ‘at present held in the hand of Lord Cobham.’ She gives £20 to her cousin, ‘Isabell Palin wife of Thomas Palin’ of Downesdale, Staffordshire.

She gives £10 to her grandson Francis Brooke, £20 to Catherine, the daughter of her grandson Francis Brooke, and £10 to her grandson Edward Brooke. She then appoints her two granddaughters, Mary and Catherine, along with her good friend Richard Nevill, as joint executors of her will.

Probate was granted three years later on 24 November 1718, so we can estimate that Catherine Comberford died at Comberford Hall in mid to late 1718.

Comberford Hall, a Grade II listed building … Catherine Comberford died there in 1718 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Because Catherine Brooke, Catherine Comberford’s granddaughter, is not married at this time, I had failed to pursue any further biographical details. But, in recent weeks, I have found that after the death of her grandmother Catherine Comberford, Catherine Brooke married Thomas Purcell. This Purcell family lived in Stafford earlier in the 17th century. While there is some speculation that they were related to the composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695), this seems highly unlikely.

In later life, her will reveals, Catherine (Brooke) Purcell had unhappy relationships with her own family and with her husband’s family. In her will, she expresses her displeasure with her own family and she entirely ignores her Purcell in-laws.

In this will, Catherine (Brooke) Purcell describes herself as a widow, late of The Hay in the parish of Madeley in Shropshire, but by then living in the Parish of Saint Andrew, Holborn, in Middlesex, widow. She drew up her will on 10 December 1744, and it was proved on 1 September 1746.

Catherine and Thomas Purcell had no children. In her will, Catherine gives £500 each to her two nieces, Ann and Mary Grosvenor, daughters of Sherrington Grosvenor of Holt in the Parish of Kingsbury, Warwickshire. But, pointedly, she leaves only £1 1s to her nephew, also named Sherrington Grosvenor.

This nephew Sherrington Grosvenor married Rose Austen, daughter of Sir Robert Austen; Rose’s aunt, Rose Austen, had married Comberford Brooke, brother of Catherine (Brooke) Purcell, who died in 1711.

Catherine bequeaths to her ‘dear Brother John Brooke’ the sum of £50 for mourning and 20 shillings for a ring.

‘But,’ referring to her brother and her nephew, she says, ‘I declare they do not deserve anything from me they not having given me the least relief though I have for several years last past been driven to such extremities as often to want common necessaries of life and must have perished for want had I not been relieved by my executors.’

She gave £20 to Richard Foster ‘for his kindness towards me.’ She left £500 to be divided between Elizabeth and Janet Vaughan, daughters of Thomas Vaughan of Essex Street in the parish of Saint Clement Danes, London, ‘as a token of my gratitude for the great kindness and civility he has shown me.’

She also leaves £500 for William Morris, the infant son of Thomas Morris, now living in Brooks Market in Saint Andrew’s Parish, Holborn, expressing gratitude for ‘the great kindness often showed me by … Thomas Morris and for his procuring me a friend and for several expenses he has been at in my support and maintenance and in consideration of the love and affection I have and bear towards the said William Morris. for whom I wish I could better provide.’

She leaves the rest of her estate to her friend Thomas Morris and she appoints Thomas Morris and Thomas Vaughan the joint executors of her will.

Catherine must have been quite a well-off woman when she married Thomas Purcell, and she appears to have inherited most of her wealth from her grandmother, Catherine Comberford.

As for the last remaining family property holdings in Comberford, they were disposed of in a deed of partition, involving the lease and release of property in the Manor of Comberford and Wigginton, on 29 June 1771 by Sherrington Grosvenor of Langley, Buckinghamshire, and Christopher Astley of Tamworth, to John Millington of Tamworth.

The last remaining Comberford holdings were divided in a lease and release of the property in 1771 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)