The Donegal House Clock in Lichfield hides stories of parlourmaids, contested wills and wealthy widows

The clock between the Guildhall and Donegal House on Bore Street, Lichfield … a gift of the Swinfen-Broun family in 1928 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

Along with the Cathedral Bells ringing out across the Cathedral Close, and the many church chimes on the hour, quarter hour and half hour, Lichfield has two public or civic clocks that have been keeping time in Lichfield for generation.

The clock on the façade of Donegal House in Bore Street has been one of the landmarks on Bore Street for almost a century, while the Friary Clock, first erected in 1863 at the junction of Bird Street and Bore Street, was moved to its present site beside the Bowling Green roundabout in 1928.

I had a good look at the Friary Clock and its plaques four months ago, so it was good to see the Donegal House clock back in place last week on the front of Donegal House after some recent repairs and renovations

Apart from the internal workings, the clock was restored in 2015 by Smiths of Derby. Unfortunately, the clock had been losing time, and because of this the original internal gearing had to be replaced with an electric motor.

The original gearing from the clock is kept in the original winding house in the Lichfield Festival office in Donegal House, along with part of the original winding instructions as well as old pulley wheels and weights.

The clock was donated to the people of Lichfield by Mrs MA Swinfen Broun almost a century ago, in 1928 – months after the Friary Clock had been moved to a new site away from the centre of Lichfield. A plaque beneath the clock declares: ‘This clock was presented to the Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of Lichfield by Mrs M.A. Swinfen-Broun. Swinfen Hall Lichfield. On the 5th November 1928.’

The Swinfen-Broun clock has been repaired and restored once again in recent months (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Donegal House sits between the Guildhall and the Tudor Café. It was built for a local merchant, James Robinson, in 1730 but takes its name from the Chichester family, who held the titles of Earl and Marquess of Donegall, and who once owned vast estates near Lichfield, including Fisherwick Park and Comberford Hall.

Lichfield Council acquired Donegal House for use as offices in 1909. Plans to create a large new Council Chamber on the first floor of Donegal House never went ahead. Council meetings continued in Guildhall while Donegal House was used as offices, and connecting doors were made between the two buildings on ground floor and first floor.

Mrs MA Swinfen-Broun, who presented the Donegal House clock to the people of Lichfield, is often overlooked and most references to the clock discuss her husband, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Alexander Wilsone Swinfen-Broun (1857-1948). Indeed, even the plaque beneath the clock does not hint at her own original names.

Laura Swinfen Broun (1853-1932) was born Laura Crossley Eno on 17 September 1853, in Newcastle upon Tyne, a daughter of Elizabeth Ann (Cooke) Eno (1827-1907) and James Crossley Eno (1827-1915), a member of the Eno family of fruit salts fame.

Laura first married Dr John Nicholson Fleming (1848-1881), a doctor, in Gateshead, in July 1874. They lived at South Lodge, Champion Hill, Surrey, where he died on 3 July 1881, and he was buried in West Norwood Cemetery.

Laura was still in her late 20s and was left what was then a small fortune of £43,276 6s 9d – the equivalent of £6.7 million today. She was a wealthy widow still in her 30s when she married Colonel Michael Alexander Wilsone Broun on 13 October 1891, in Denham, south Buckinghamshire; she was 38 and he was 34.

He was born Michael Broun at Castle Wemyss in Renfrewshire, Scotland, on 9 July 1857, the second son of Charles Wilsone Broun (1821-1883) and his second wife Annie Rowland.

Charles Broun had spent his early childhood in a prosperous part of Glasgow. His father was called William Brown (1792-1884), and made some of his fortune in the slave trade. Charles preferred the affected or antiquated spelling of Broun, which his sons also used. After attending Glasgow University, he became a property developer and landowner, buying an estate at Wemyss Bay in Renfrewshire. There he built Castle Wemyss for his family, a large home with views across the surrounding countryside and out to the sea.

It is said that Anthony Trollope wrote part of Barchester Towers while was staying at Wemyss Bay, and that Portray Castle in The Eustace Diamonds is based on Castle Wemyss.

Charles Broun married his first wife Ellen Buchanan in 1846, but was widowed within a year. Two years after his first wife died, he married his second wife Annie Rowland. She was pregnant seven times in the space of 10 years, but only four of her children survived. She died at Castle Wemyss at the age of 37, when her youngest child was only one, leaving Charles a widower for the second time.

Three years later, Charles met Patience Swinfen, the widow of Henry Swinfen, who was the only son of Samuel Swinfen, the owner of Swinfen Hall, a large estate near Lichfield. Henry was a descendant of Samuel Swinfen, who built Swinfen Hall in 1757 and who, at various times, also owned Comberford Hall, in 1755 and again in 1759-1761.

The extraordinary tale of Patience Swinfen’s inheritance and her battle to become the chatelaine of Swinfen Hall have been told and retold in countless articles and books. The ex-parlourmaid’s claim to Swinfen Hall and her eventual victory was a Victorian sensation and the legal wrangles made national headlines. It is a story that is the stuff of trash novels, court intrigues and salacious rumour-mongering.

Henry Swinfen (1802-1854) had been living a dissolute and aimless life in Paris and London and was 29 when he met Patience Williams, the 18-year-old daughter of a Welsh farmer. When Henry first met Patience she was a parlourmaid in a lodging house in Bloomsbury. They married secretly in March 1831 without letting their parents know and spent the next 13 years travelling on Continental Europe. Attractive and much more intelligent than her husband, Patience charmed all she met, including Henry’s ageing father, Samuel Swinfen.

When Henry Swinfen died in June 1854, Patience had already charmed her way into the affections of her father-in-law, if not his bed. Samuel Swinfen was 80 and in his last illness he a made new will naming Patience as his heir. He promptly died three weeks later in July 1854. Patience had been left Swinfen Hall, 1,200 acres of land 4.5 miles south of Lichfield, and £60,000.

But her inheritances was challenged by other members of the Swinfen family and a series of court cases ensued involving several celebrated lawyers. Charles Rann Kennedy (1808-1867), who eventually acted for Patience, became involved with her in a romantic and sexual relationship, abandoning his wife and six children.

Kennedy won the case for Patience, but when he tried to claim a large fee from her she resisted and instead Patience married the widowed Charles Broun in 1861, much to Kennedy’s chagrin. Kennedy then dragged Patience and Charles back into the courts in what became a scandalous trial that the newly-wed couple eventually won.

Charles and Patience moved onto the Swinfen Estate near Lichfield, and two of Charles Broun’s children, including four-year-old Michael, adopted the name Swinfen-Broun, although they were not descended from the Swinfen family. As for Kennedy, he turned from calling Patience the ‘suffering Dame’ in his poetry or doggerel to calling her ‘the Serpent of Swinfen’. He was disbarred from practising law and when he died in 1867, he was bitter, disgraced and utterly broken.

The plaque below the Swinfen-Broun … the full name of the female donor is noticeably absent (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Michael Alexander Swinfen-Broun, as he was now known, was sent to school at Rugby. From there, he was commissioned in the South Staffordshire Regiment in 1876.

He married the widowed and wealthy Laura Fleming in 1891 when she was 38 and he was 34. The following year, he became the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion of the South Staffords in 1892. He fought in the Boer War in South Africa in 1901-1902, and he remained an honorary colonel after he retired from the army in 1904. He was the High Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant of Staffordshire in 1907 and was a senior magistrate in Lichfield.

The Swinfen-Brouns were generous patrons and benefactors of good causes in the Lichfield and Weeford areas. He was the President of the Lichfield Victoria Hospital for 14 years, they both gave major donations to the hospital, and they gave many gifts to the City of Lichfield, including a valuable collection of silver as well as the public clock on the wall between Donegal House and the Guildhall.

His other bequests to Lichfield included statues by Donato Barcaglia, known locally as ‘Old Father Time’, and by Antonio Rossetti, known in Lichfield as ‘The Reading Girl’.

Laura died at Swinfen Hall on 23 August 1932, at the age of 78, and she was buried in Weeford, outside Lichfield.

The Swinfen-Brouns were the parents of an only daughter, Elizabeth Doris Farnham (1893-1935), known as Elsie. She married John Adrian George (Jack) Farnham (1890-1930) at Saint Peter’s Church, Pimlico; she was 20 and by now the Eno heiress, he was 22. But the couple had no children, the marriage was unhappy; after five years, Elsie left Jack and they were divorced in 1925. Jack married again in 1926, but he died after a heart attack on 24 September 1930, aged only 40 and leaving a young widow and three young children.

Within three years of her mother’s death, the divorced Elsie died on 16 April 1935 and she was buried in Saint John the Evangelist churchyard in Frieth, Buckinghamshire.

Although widowed and bereft, Colonel Swinfen-Broun remained active in public life, and the City Council conferred the Freedom of Lichfield on him in 1938 as a token of gratitude for his generosity.

He continued with this benevelonce and his most valuable gift to Lichfield was 12 acres of land at Beacon Park, given in 1943 to extend the recreation grounds and for use as a public park and garden. He died on 8 June 1948.

Swinfen-Broun left his estate to the Church and the City of Lichfield, and most of the land was sold off. Swinfen Hall was unoccupied for many years until 1987, when it was converted the main house into a hotel that closed in recent years.

Swinfen-Broun’s Barcaglia statue was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in London for £150,000 in 2008, as the council could no longer to provide it with a home that had suitable conditions to prevent its deterioration. ‘The Reading Girl’ is on display in the Hub at Saint Mary’s, Lichfield. And the Swinfen-Broun Clock is back in its place between the Guildhall and Donegal House on Bore Street in Lichfield.

The Swinfen-Broun Clock is back in place between the Guildhall and Donegal House on Bore Street in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Further Reading:

Angela Coulter, A Stream of Lives (London, Troubador, 2021)

Swinfen Hall, Staffordshire, Heritage Impact Assessment, Donald Insall Associates, Chartered Architects and Historic Building Consultants, for Bushell Investment Group, June 2023, < https://docs.planning.org.uk/20240806/49/SGVKPUJEIFG00/stmiyo4snp9j4bdi.pdf >

‘Unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible’ … the very model of a statesman and Prime Minister

Trollope’s ‘Can You Forgive Her?’ side-by-side with his ‘The Prime Minister’ in the window of Collinge & Clark at No 13 Leigh Street in Bloomsbury last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Oliver Clark is now the sole owner of Collinge & Clark, a small, one-room bookshop at No 13 Leigh Street in Bloomsbury. Many remember its shopfront as the Black Books bookshop in the 2000-2004 TV comedy by Dylan Moran and Graham Linehan.

Yet, behind the monochrome exterior, there is a wealth of literature and a treasure trove of collections in the window and across the threshold in what is probably the most interesting second-hand bookshop on these islands.

In the window last week, two volumes of Anthony Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her? sat neatly beside two volumes of Trollope’s The Prime Minister – surely not a comment on today’s questions about Boris Johnson or how he once sought a paid position at the Foreign Office for his then mistress and present wife Carrie Symonds?

Inside the one-room shop, delights await anyone interested in design and typography; from independent private presses to first editions of artists such as William Morris, it is a place to browse and to be inspired.

Collinge & Clark the Black Books bookshop in the 2000-2004 TV comedy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Of course, the Prime Minister who inspired Trollope’s Mr Mildmay and Plantagenet Palliser was probably Lord John Russell (1792-1878), who gives his name to the Lord John Russell, a pub around the corner on Marchmont Street.

Trollope believed the ideal Prime Minister should have ‘unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible love of country … But he should also be scrupulous, and, as being scrupulous, weak.’

These are qualities that one would be hard-pressed to find in the present Prime Minister: ‘unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible love of country … scrupulous … weak.’ But Trollope found them in Lord John Russell who was twice Prime Minister, in 1846-1852 and again in 1865-1866, and Vanity Fair conceded he was ‘the greatest liberal statesman of modern times.’

Lord John Russell gives his name to a pub on Marchmont Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Russell is remembered in Ireland for his failures in trying to come to grips with the Famine, although his father, John Russell (1766-1839), 6th Duke of Bedford, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1806-1807).

Lord John Russell was a genuine reformer, pursuing the political rights of Catholics, Non-Conformists and Jews, seeking to extend the franchise and trying to reduce the extent and impact of the death penalty. His grandson was the philosopher Bertrand Russell.

The Russell estate continues to own considerable parts of Bloomsbury to this day, and the names of its streets and squares reflect the benevolent influence of the Russell family in the area: Bedford Square, Bedford Place, Bedford Avenue and Bedford Way, Dukes Street and Dukes Road (now Coptic Street), and Russell Square and Russell Street, recall that the Dukes of Bedford.

Tavistock Square and Tavistock Street recall a Russell family title and the fact that Lord John Russell first sat in the House of Commons as the MP for Tavistock in Devon. Woburn Place, Woburn Square, Woburn Walk – where WB Yeats lived from 1895 to 1919 – and Woburn Place are named after Woburn Abbey, the family seat of the Dukes of Bedford, about 10 miles east of Milton Keynes.

Virginia Woolf lived at 52 Tavistock Square from 1924 to 1939 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Tavistock Square has monuments to two outstanding, pioneering women, in its corners. The memorial to the surgeon Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake (1865-1925) in the south-east corner has a bust by Arthur George Walker on a plinth designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

A bust of the writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), cast from a 1931 sculpture by Stephen Tomlin (1901-1937), was unveiled in 2004 in the south-west corner of the square.

Virginia Woolf lived at 52 Tavistock Square from 1924 to 1939. From there, Virginia and Leonard Woolf ran the Hogarth Press, which became a prominent and influential publisher at the forefront of modernist fiction and poetry, publishing TS Eliot, EM Forster and Katherine Mansfield and others, and translating Sigmund Freud into English.

But the centre-piece of the gardens in Tavistock Square is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, sculpted by Fredda Brilliant and installed in 1968. The hollow pedestal was being cleaned out and being tended carefully when I visited Tavistock Square last week. It used by people to leave floral tributes to Gandhi as a peace campaigner and nonviolent resister to oppression in South Africa and colonial rule in India.

A cherry tree was planted in the square in 1967 to commemorate the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945. The Conscientious Objectors Commemorative Stone by Hugh Court, commemorating ‘men and women conscientious objectors all over the world and in every age,’ was unveiled in 1994.

These three features have made to the square an unofficial peace park and garden, with annual ceremonies at each of these memorials. And all three, like Lord John Russell, stand as challenges to the arrogant style and dismissive approach to power embodied in the present Prime Minister.

Today’s equivalents of Anthony Trollope and Vanity Fair are never going to acclaim Boris Johnson as ‘unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible love of country … scrupulous, and, as being scrupulous, weak.’ Nor is history in danger of remembering him as ‘the greatest liberal statesman of modern times.’

Mahatma Gandhi receiving tender attention and care in Tavistock Square last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Saint Colman’s Church, once a ‘de facto’ cathedral and now the library in Gort, Co Galway

Saint Colman’s Church in Gort, Co Galway, served as the ‘de facto’ cathedral of the Diocese of Kilmacduagh for most of the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

After visiting the ruins of the cathedral and monastic sits in Kilmacduagh, Co Galway, at the weekend, two of us returned to the town of Gort to see the former Church of Ireland parish church, Saint Colman’s.

For most of the 18th and 19th centuries, this church served as the de facto cathedral for the tiny Church of Ireland Diocese of Kilmacduagh, and the Rector of Gort was also known as the Dean of Kilmacduagh until 1892. Today, this church serves as the town’s public library.

Gort is ideally located for exploring the Burren, south Galway and north Clare. Sites nearby include Coole Park, once the home of Lady Gregory and cradle of the Irish literary revival; Thoor Ballylee, once the home of WB Yeats; as well as Kilmacduagh Cathedral, the monastic site and the round tower.

Inside Saint Colman’s Church in Gort stands on a site donated by the Prendergast family and their descendant, Lord Gort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Gort is a pretty market town between Galway City and Ennis, and has been designated a heritage town, with its traditional street-plan and shopfronts.

Gort (Gort Inse Guaire or An Gort) is just north of the border with Co Clare on the Galway-Limerick road. It is in the former territory of Uí Fiachrach Aidhne also known as Maigh Aidhne (‘the plain of Aidhne’), which was coextensive with the Diocese of Kilmacduagh.

The name means the meadow on the island of Guaire, referring to Guaire Aidne mac Colmáin, the sixth century King of Connacht and patron of Saint Colman MacDuagh of Kilmacduagh.

During the Middle Ages the chiefs of Cenél Áeda na hEchtge, the O’Shaughnessys (Ó Seachnasaigh) clan, had their principal stronghold in Gort, on a site that later became a cavalry barracks. The O’Shaughnessy lands were confiscated at the end of the 17th century, and granted to Sir Thomas Prendergast (1660-1709).

The former sanctuary of Saint Colman’s Church, now the town library in Gort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

His son, Sir Thomas Prendergast (1702-1760), MP for Clonmel, presented 294 acres in the Gort area to the Very Revd Joseph Bradshaw, Dean of Kilmacduagh, in 1738. Two years later, the first Church of Ireland parish church in the town, with a wooden spire, was built in 1740.

Prendergast also donated a house and farm to the Very Revd William Nethercote, Dean of Kilmacduagh, in 1749, along with 53 acres of land near Gort known as Horse Park.

The sites for the two parish churches in Gort, the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic parish churches in the town, both named Saint Colman’s, were donated by Prendergast’s son, John Prendergast-Smyth (1742-1817), 1st Lord Gort. Before being made a peer in 1810, Lord Gort was MP for Carlow (1776-1783) and Limerick (1785-1798); his paternal grandfather was Thomas Smyth, Bishop of Limerick, and his uncles included Arthur Smyth, Archbishop of Dublin.

The Deanery House on Church Street was built as the rectory in 1812, and a new Church of Ireland parish church, Saint Colman’s, was built in 1814.

The East Window is the work of Sibthorpe of Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

This church is attributed to the Limerick-based architect, James Pain (1779-1877), who also designed the neghbouring Roman Catholic parish church in Gort, also known as Saint Colman’s (see HERE).

Pain’s other churches include Saint Saviour’s Church (1816), Limerick, Chapel Russell Church (1822), Mungret Church (1822-1824), Co Limerick, Saint John’s Church (1814), Listowel, Co Kerry, Saint John’s Church (1826), Buttevant, Co Cork, Castletown Church (1830-1832), Kilcornan, Co Limerick, Saint Michael’s Church (1838-1844), Limerick, the Rectory in Askeaton (1826-1827), Pery Square, Co Limerick, and, perhaps, Saint Mary’s Church (1827), Askeaton, Co Limerick.

Pain’s other works include Thomond Bridge (1816), Athlunkard Bridge (1826-1830) and Baal’s Bridge (1830-1831), Limerick, Villiers Almshouse, Limerick (1826-1827), Tontine Terrace (1835-1838), Pery Square, Limerick, and the Courthouse (1843), Rathkeale, Co Limerick; rebuilding Saint Alibius Cathedral (1826-1827), Emly, Co Tipperary, and works on Saint Columba’s Church, Ennis, Co Clare, and alterations to Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, Saint Munchin’s Church, Limerick, All Saints’ Church, Stradbally, Co Limerick, Saint Carthage’s Cathedral, Lismore, Co Waterford, and Saint Brendan’s Church, Loughrea, Co Galway.

Pain also worked on Curraghchase House, Co Limerick, Elm Park, Clarina, Co Limerick, Glin Castle, Co Limerick, and the Erasmus Smith Grammar School, Tarbert, Co Kerry.

The surviving baptismal font in Saint Colman’s Church, Gort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Colman’s Church in Gort was built with a loan of £1,400 by the Board of First Fruits, and it was repaired in 1828 with a further loan of £600. Queen Street was laid out in Gort after this church was built, to allow it to be viewed to its best advantage from the east.

Fine craftsmanship can be seen throughout this building, particularly in the stone carving at the pinnacles, the crenellations and string courses.

This church has a two-bay nave, a three-stage tower at the west gable, full-height transepts, and a lower chancel at the east end. There is a crenellated canted porch at the north re-entrant corner of the chancel and the nave, and a similar annex at the south.

There is a pointed arch stained-glass three-light window in the east gable with a cut limestone block-and-start surround. This remaining stained-glass window is the work of Sibthorpe of Dublin and was a gift from a Mrs Lahiff.

There are pointed arch windows in the rest of the church, with replacement windows. The pointed arch door openings at the porch and the south side of the tower have chamfered limestone block-and-start surrounds. There are timber battened doors with cut limestone steps.

The gallery in the north transept was once allocated to the Gregory family of Coole Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The gallery in the north transept of the church was allocated to the Gregory family of Coole Park, and the gallery in the south transept was reserved for the family of Viscount Gort.

The church has pitched slate roofs with cut-stone copings, and a tower with a spire and crenellations. There are crenellations also at the porch and annex, cut-stone finials and cross finials at the gables, and corner pinnacles.

The dressed walls have stepped corner buttresses, and there are cut-stone string courses on the tower. The top stage of the tower has pointed arch louvered openings.

The monument to John Prendergast Vereker (1790-1865), 3rd Viscount Gort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The walls have interesting wall plaques commemorating former, distinguished parishioners, including the Ven Henry Varian Daly, who was Archdeacon of Clonfert and Rector of Gort for 31 years (although his plaque says 51 years) until he died in 1925 at the age of 87.

Archdeacon Daly is said to have saved the town of Gort from being burned by the Black and Tans in 1921.

Another monument commemorates John Prendergast Vereker (1790-1865), 3rd Viscount Gort. He was MP for Limerick (1817-1820) and Mayor of Limerick (1831-1832). His children named on this memorial include a son who died in Yangon (Rangoon) in Myanmar (Burma), and a son who died in Yokohama in Japan.

The memorial to the diolomat Hugh Gough (1849-1919), 3rd Viscount Gough (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Hugh Gough (1849-1919), 3rd Viscount Gough, was a grandson of Field Marshal Hugh Gough (1779-1869), 1st Viscount Gough, who had bought Lough Cutra Castle near Gort in 1852.

The Gough family was descended from the Revd Hugh Gough, Rector of All Cannings, near Devizes, Wiltshire, whose three sons moved to Ireland and became Chancellor of Limerick, Archdeacon of Ardfert and Bishop of Limerick.

The 3rd Viscount Gough was a career diplomat from 1873 to 1909, serving as the British Minister Resident at the Court of the Kingdom of Saxony and the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and chargé d’affaires at the Court of Principality of Waldeck in the years immediately before World War I.

A brass memorial recalls his brother, Colonel George Hugh Gough (1852-1900), who was the private secretary to Viscount Wolseley and who died when during the Boer War in South Africa in 1900.

A brass memorial recalls Colonel George Hugh Goug, who died in South Africa (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Sir William Henry Gregory (1817-1892) of Coole Park, near Gort, was MP for Dublin (1842-1847) and Co Galway (1857-1872), and Governor of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka (1872-1877). He also paid for the restoration and recapping of the Round Tower nearby at Kilmacduagh, the tallest round tower in Ireland.

Gregory was also an advocate of the cause of Greece and sympathetic to the Philhellenes. In a speech deliverd on 18 March 1864, he called for the restoration of the Ionian Islands and Crete to the modern Greek state.

‘If there was one spot,’ he said, ‘in all Europe where the name of England was cherished before, it was in these Ionian Islands. Now there are few places where it is regarded with greater distrust and dislike. Had these islands belonged to us, and had we ceded them, or parted company with them in any way, it would have been an evil thing to destroy their fortifications; but we are actually blowing up now that which never belonged to us, and against the destruction of which the owners protest.

‘These islands were always independent, even when under our protection. The rights of the lonians to their fortresses were recognised in the sixth article of the Congress of Vienna.

‘When Lord Malmesbury made a proposal on 16 April 1863 that these islands should be neutralised, and their fortresses destroyed, Lord Russell reprimanded him, saying that the Ionian Islands were independent states, and that if they were united to Greece it would be for them to decide whether the fortresses of Corfu were to be kept up.

‘They have kept up these fortresses by heavy taxation since 1825, though I am quite ready to admit that they have not paid up the full amount of necessary contributions. The lonians were altogether ignorant of the terms of the treaty of 1863, by which their fortresses were to be destroyed. The whole affair arose from Austrian misgivings lest these islands should be seized by the Italians, and used as a basis of hostile operations; but, if so, let Austria take on herself the discredit of this act. Why should we be execrated, and our good faith impugned, to allay Austria’s apprehensions.’

Gregory spoke of ‘the lighting up of hope in the breasts of the oppressed at the deliverance of their brethren.’

His widow, the former Augusta Persse (1852-1932), is remembered as Lady Gregory, a key figure in the Irish literary revival, a founder of the Abbey Theatre, and the patron of William Butler Yeats, who often went to church in Gort.

Sir William Gregory lost much of his inherited fortune in gambling on the racetrack. It is no surprise, then, that he gives his name to the inspector in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel Silver Blaze (1892). The story is based on the disappearance of a racehorse on the eve of a major race. Gregory was at Harrow with Sir Robert Peel and Anthony Trollope, and he may have been the model for Phineas Finn in Trollope’s Palliser novels.

Sir William Henry Gregory inspired characters in novels by Arthur Conan Doyle and Anthony Trollope (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Saint Colman’s Church is set in its own grounds, and the graveyard on the south side of the church, which is still in use, incorporates the former orchard of a neighbouring convent.

The church closed in 1970 and was handed over on behalf of the diocese to the people of Gort on 5 April 1972, when Bishop Edwin Owen of Killaloe presented the keys to Bishop Michael Browne of Galway.

Since then, the church has become the public library in Gort.

Saint Colman’s Church is set in its own grounds and is now the town library in Gort (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The mixed Evangelical and High Anglican background of John Henry Newman

Cardinal Newman’s bust in University Church, Dublin … he is to be canonised a saint by Pope Francis in Rome today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) is being canonised a saint in Rome today [13 October 2019], nine years after his beatification on 19 September 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI during his four-day visit to England.

The canonisation of John Henry Newman today is of interest both for Anglicans and for many people in Ireland, for Newman was one of the most influential figures in English Church life in the 19th century.

Today’s new saint came from an evangelical background in the Church of England, studied at Trinity College Oxford, and became a Fellow of Oriel College Oxford in 1822. He was ordained deacon in Christ Church, Oxford, in 1824, priest in 1825, and became Vicar of the University Church (Saint Mary’s) in Oxford in 1828.

Tom Tower and the Quad at Christ Church Oxford, where Newman was ordained (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In 1832, Newman went on a holiday in Italy with his friend Richard Hurrell Froude (1801-1836) of Oriel College and his father. He left them in Rome as he travelled on to Sicily, but there he became gravely ill with a fever. When he recovered, the weather delayed his return to England and he was forced to stay on board his ship for a further three weeks.

During those weeks, he wrote one of his best-known and best-loved poems, Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom. The poem shows his sense of complete uncertainty and disorientation, and reveals his sense of groping in the darkness, pleading with God to lead and guide him.

The University Church of Saint Mary, where Newman was Vicar during his days in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On the Sunday he returned to Oxford, 14 July 1833, Newman heard John Keble (1792-1866), Professor of Poetry at Oxford, preach his famous Assize sermon in Newman’s own church. Keble’s sermon was an attack on state interference in church affairs, prompted by government moves to reform the diocesan structures of the Church of Ireland, and is now seen as the beginning of the Oxford Movement.

Meanwhile, Newman was gaining a reputation as a poet and his edited collection, Lyra Apostolica, including Lead, kindly light, was published in 1836.

Alongside Edward Pusey and John Keble, Newman became one of the leading lights of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement, and was the principal author of the Tracts for the Times, writing 27 of the tracts. In a seminal exposition of Anglicanism in his Prophetical Office of the Church (1837), Newman maintained that the essential points of Anglicanism are its doctrine, its sacramental system and its legitimate claims to be the Catholic Church in England. However, he reached a turning point in 1841 with Tract 90, in which he tried to reconcile the 39 Articles with the decrees of the Council of Trent and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Newman was censured by the university and was silenced by the Bishop of Oxford. He resigned from Saint Mary’s in 1843, and after considerable hesitation became a Roman Catholic and was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Dominic Barbieri on 9 October 1845.

He defended this decision in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Five years later, the Roman Catholic hierarchy was officially founded in England and Wales. Newman founded the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Birmingham, and remained at the Oratory in Birmingham for the rest of his life – apart from a few short years in Dublin.

Saint Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Birmingham … Newman regarded Pugin as “intolerant” and “a bigot” and despised his Gothic style of church architecture (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At the time of Newman’s conversion, Roman Catholicism in England was going through a traumatic transition. Until the early 19th century, it was dominated by the old landed recusant families – the sort of families who would later figure in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisted. But it was changing with the increasing influx of poor Irish immigrants, and Birmingham became the heart of the Irish slums in the English Midlands.

Saint Chad’s Cathedral in Birmingham was designed by AWN Pugin, who also designed Saint Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, and Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Killarney, around the same time. But Pugin had strong disagreements and debates with Newman, who regarded the great architect of the Gothic revival as ‘a man of genius’ but ‘intolerant’ and ‘a bigot.’

Newman House, Dublin, where Newman was Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In 1854, Newman moved to Dublin, and for four years he was rector of the newly-founded but short-lived Catholic University of Ireland. His plans for a university were frustrated, yet his stay in Ireland saw him publish his The Idea of a University.

His college chapel survives as the University Church on Saint Stephen’s Green, beside Newman House, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the former site of Wesley College.

University Church, Dublin, built by Pollen for Newman (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The University Church was designed by John Hungerford Pollen, who was invited to Dublin by Newman as Professor of Fine Art. Newman rejected Pugin’s Gothic style, seeing in it echoes of the pagan forests of Northern Europe; but he also associated the classical style with his Anglican past and Greek and Roman paganism. And so, he favoured the Byzantine style for his university church.

Pollen’s design is the only successful Byzantine-style church in Ireland, and shows the influence of John Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.

The interior of University Church, Dublin … Byzantine architecture inspired Newman’s vision and Pollen’s design for University Church, Dublin

Practical organisation was not among Newman’s gifts, and after four unhappy years in Dublin he returned to Birmingham. Little did he know that his efforts to establish a university in Ireland would eventually bear fruit in University College Dublin. The Literary and Historical Society (L&H), which he founded, remains one of the best-known university debating societies in Ireland.

Back in England, a controversy in 1863 and 1864 involving the Anglican social reformer, Charles Kingsley, led Newman to publish his Apologia pro Vita Sua, earning his place as one the greatest Catholic minds of his time. His other great works include The Dream of Gerontius (1865) and the Grammar of Assent (1870).

Newman was not uncritical of his new Church. His opposition to the Pope’s retention of temporal powers led to a breach in his friendship with Cardinal Manning (1801-1892), another former evangelical Anglican and subsequent Tractarian who had been Archdeacon of Chichester and then became Archbishop of Westminster in 1865 and a cardinal in 1875.

Yet Newman retained many Anglican friends throughout his life, including Richard Church, Dean of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, and a nephew of Sir Richard Church, the Cork-born liberator of Greece. He read Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers on the recommendation of Pollen. When Newman heard of Kinglsley’s death he acknowledged Kingsley’s role in prompting his Apologia, his defence of the Athanasian Creed, and how he had preached kindly about Newman in Chester Cathedral, and added: ‘I said Mass for his soul as soon as I heard of his death.’

A copy of the portrait of Newman as a cardinal, by Sir John Everett Milais, in University Church Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Although never a bishop, Newman was made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879 at the suggestion of the Duke of Norfolk. When he died on 27 February 1891, he was buried in Rednall Hill, Birmingham, in the same grave as his lifelong friend, Ambrose St John, who lived with Newman as his companion for 32 years.

To thwart attempts to make a cult of his remains, Newman ordered that he should be buried in a rich compost so that his corpse would decompose rapidly. When his body was exhumed 11 years ago in an attempt to retrieve relics, nothing was found except the brass plate and handles of his coffin.

Newman’s coat-of-arms as a cardinal (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Was Newman a pious Anglo-Catholic who prefigured those who Anglican priests who moved to Rome in recent years?

Or was he essentially an Anglican who continued to resist Papal encroachments on the Church and on the conscience of the individual?

What has been called the ‘battle for Newman’s legacy’ took on a new intensity at the time of his beatification with John Cornwell’s book, Newman’s Unquiet Grave: the reluctant saint.

Pope Benedict claimed some years ago that Newman was a faithful supporter of the papal magesterium and pontifical dogmas on many issues, and was an opponent of Catholic dissent. However, John Cornwell portrayed Newman as a dissident when it came to papal authority, infallibility, the downgrading of the laity and the primacy of papal dogma over individual conscience.

‘I shall drink to the Pope if you please,’ Newman once wrote, ‘… still to conscience first and the Pope afterwards.’ He once wrote of the ageing Pope Pius IX: ‘He becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know fact, and does cruel things without meaning it.’

Cornwell did not question whether Newman ought to be considered for sainthood. But he challenged the criteria on which the Vatican has found a miracle in the healing of Jack Sullivan, an elderly deacon and former court official in Massachusetts. It is ironic that Newman himself, in his own words, would have been a reluctant saint, for he once remarked that he had ‘no tendency to be one.’

Newman’s hymns include Praise to the Holiest in the height and Firmly I Believe, both from his poem The Dream of Gerontius, and both of which are in the Irish Church Hymnal of the Church of Ireland (hymns 108 and 320). A third, well-loved Newman hymn, Lead, kindly light (Hymn 653), shows how he was never a man for easy answers or the ready acceptance of imposed dogma and authority.

Writing in the Tablet yesterday [12 October 2019], Professor Roderick Strange of Saint Mary's University, Twickenham, quotes Newman writing in 1848: ‘God has created me to do him some definite service … if I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve him.’

Newman as a young don in Oxford … a copy of a well-known image in University Church Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This posting includes material first published in August 2010 in the ‘Church Review,’ the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan magazine

The Dublin-born Tory MP who was a fraudster and bought voters with drinks

Albert Grant (1831-1899) portrayed in a cartoon in ‘Vanity Fair’ … he was born Abraham Zachariah Gotheimer in extreme poverty in a laneway off Fleet Street in Dublin

Patrick Comerford

During research in recent weeks I have come across the extraordinary story of Albert Grant (1831-1899), a Conservative MP who was also a fraudster engaged in banking and business frauds in Britain and across the world throughout much of the 19th century. He liked to be known as Baron Grant, an Italian title he probably bought, and defrauded poor widows and Anglican clergy for decades.

Although the scale of his frauds was extraordinary in his day, his story may not appear unusual by the standards held or ignored by many holding public office today. Nor should we surprised by the story of a Tory MP who secured his election
What is unusual may be the fact that he was born into conditions of stark poverty, and that the respectable politician he defeated by bribery and buying votes was also born in Dublin.

Albert Grant was born Abraham Zachariah Gotheimer in Dublin on 18 November 1831. His father, Berton Gotheimer, was born in Prussia around 1798 and later moved to Liverpool, where he was living in 1829; his mother Julia was born in Portsmouth.

In Dublin, Berton Gotheimer eked out a living as a poor pedlar. When Abraham was born in a lane off Fleet Street in Dublin, the family was so poor their neighbours had to provide swaddling clothes for the baby.

The child was circumcised by Alexander Lazarus Benmohel, President of the synagogue in Saint Mary’s Abbey, Dublin.

The family later moved to London where his father became a partner in a business importing fancy goods and a commission agent.

As a child in London, Abraham Gotheimer worked for a family retailer who sold imported French musical boxes, clock parts and other pieces, although later in life he claimed he was educated in London and Paris. By 1851, he was working as a merchant’s clerk in the city of London and later became a travelling salesman of wines.

Meanwhile, he was been baptised into the Church of England and changed his name to Albert Grant before marrying Emily Isabella Robinson in 1856. She was the daughter of Skeffington Robinson from Antrim, a slave-owning sugar planter in Dominica.

As Albert Grant, he was admitted as a freeman of the city of London, and by 1858 had established himself as a banker and discount agent in Lombard Street. He set up the Mercantile Discount Company in 1859. Concerns were aired about the large salaries and beneficial financial guarantees enjoyed by Grant and his partners.

The company failed in 1861 with liabilities of £1.5 million. But Grant escaped any personal loss, and was soon financing railway schemes in Yorkshire, Essex and Wales.

He expanded his activities in 1863, establishing Crédit Foncier and Mobilier of England, one of a number of ‘rip-off finance houses’ that flourished in the sustained bull market of the period. He used Crédit Foncier and Mobilier of England to launch a number of ventures in which he found investors by using directories and targeting financially naive groups, including Anglican clergy and widows.

Meanwhile Grant built an opulent house at Cooper’s Hill near Egham, Surrey, designed in the Gothic revival style by F & H Francis in 1865. He was selected that year as the Conservative candidate in Kidderminster, standing against the sitting Liberal MP, Dublin-born Colonel Luke White (1829-1888) of Luttrellstown Castle, Dublin. White, who was a Junior Lord of the Treasury, had previously been MP for Co Clare (1859-1860) and Co Longford (1861-1862).

During the campaign, Grant was denounced as ‘a fraudulent adventurer,’ but Grant was elected and held the seat for three years.

Victor Emmanuel II of Italy gave Grant the hereditary title of baron in May 1868. Supposedly this was in recognition of Grant’s role in raising the finances to build the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, one of the largest and earliest fashionable shopping centres in Europe. However, even then, it was alleged that Grant had bought the title. Later, when Grant was made a Commander of the Portuguese Order of Christ, similar allegations came to the fore.

Each of the companies he set up between 1864 and 1872 collapsed in controversial circumstances amid allegations of fraud made against Grant. Crédit Foncier fell in July 1868 when Grant left the company amidst allegations that large commissions had been improperly pocketed by the directors. As the scandals gathered steam, he decided not to contest the general election at the end of 1868, and Thomas Lea regained Kidderminster for the Liberals.

Between 1871 and 1874, he floated many British and foreign companies, including the Belgian Public Works, Cadiz Waterworks, Central Uruguay Railway, Labuan Coal Company, Imperial Bank of China, Imperial Land Company of Marseilles, Lima Railways, Odessa Waterworks and Russian Copper Company.

Most of these ventures later proved to be fraudulent. In 1872, he financed the construction of the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways (Moel Tryfan Undertaking).

By then, Grant was immensely wealthy, and in 1872 he bought Horstead Hall, near Norwich. A year later, he acquired a large slum area south of Kensington Gardens and built Kensington House, a magnificent, 90-room Italianate palace, at a cost of almost £350,000.

The statue of William Shakespeare in Leicester Square … Albert Grant presented the square and statue to the people of London in 1874 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

When a general election was called in early 1874, Grant stood again as the Conservative candidate in Kidderminster, and was returned with a majority of 111.

This was the only modern British election when a party has been defeated despite receiving an absolute majority of the popular vote. The Liberals, with 1,281,159 votes, received 242 seats, while the Conservatives with 1,091,708 votes, received 350 seats. If parallels with today are being sought, the Conservatives were a minority in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but still formed a majority, mainly because so many English seats were not contested.

Grant boosted his public image later that year when he presented Leicester Square to the people of London on 3 July 1874. The square, then known as Leicester Fields, had long been in a dilapidated state, and was used as a dumping ground for dead cats and dogs. The site was owned by numerous freeholders and the city authorities found it practically impossible to improve the area.

Grant bought out the rights of all the respective owners and, after planting an ornamental garden and erecting a statue of William Shakespeare, along with busts of Isaac Newton, William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds and John Hunter, he transferred ownership of the site to the Metropolitan Board of Works at a personal cost of £28,000.

It is interesting to note than on the plinth of Shakespeare’s statue, he is described as ‘Albert Grant, Esq, MP’ and not as Baron Albert Grant.

Meanwhile, Grant and his election agents were accused of bribery and of buying votes with drinks and food. It emerged that while his declared expenses were only £300, he had spent over £1,200 during the campaign. In a ruling in July 1874, Grant was unseated and ordered to pay costs.

Grant’s speculations included buying The Echo, a London evening newspaper, in 1875, but he sold it off within 12 months.

He was constantly pursued by creditors in the courts from 1876, and was declared bankrupt in 1877. He put the company involved in the narrow-gauge railway in Wales and that he had helped finance into receivership over a loan of £7,000, although he had made a clear profit of £8,800 from the project. The company appealed in 1878, securing a ruling that it was not liable for the debt and Grant lost the £7,000.

He was also involved in an international scandal involving the fraudulent sale of shares in the exhausted Emma Silver Mine at Alta, Utah, when he made a profit of £200,000 from the flotation. He tried to regain his fortune by establishing a new bank, the General Banking Company in 1878.

He stood again in Kidderminster in 1880 but was defeated by the Liberal candidate, John Brinton. Brinton’s first wife, who died in 1863, Ann Oldham, was from Dublin; his second wife, Mary Chaytor, was from Limerick.

The large house Grant had built in Kensington was demolished in 1883, the site sold, and the marble staircase was bought by Madame Tussaud’s. His last bank failed with liabilities of £800,000 and assets of £18,000, and he was back in the bankruptcy court in 1885.

Once one of the richest men in Britain, Grant spent his last years in relative poverty, and another order was made against him a few days before he died in Bognor on 30 August 1899 at the age of 67. As his coffin was carried to his grave, a rainstorm began and up to half the mourners decided to stay inside the church. The burial rites at his graveside were very brief.

Grant was the model for the character of the corrupt financier Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope’s novel, The Way We Live Now, first published serially at the height of Grant’s fame in 1874-1875.

As for Luke White, the other Dublin-born candidate in Kidderminster in 1865, he succeeded his father as the 2nd Lord Annaly in 1873. He was State Steward to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (1868-1873) and Lord-Lieutenant of Co Longford (1873-1874). He died in 1888.

Albert Grant was MP for Kidderminster in 1865-1868 and again in 1874 … but lost the seat in Westminster for bribery and buying votes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

What would Phineas Finn find if he returned to Killaloe today?

Killaloe, Co Clare, took its shape as a Georgian and Victorian town in the late 18th and early 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Part of the pleasure of walking through the streets of Killaloe, Co Clare, on Sunday afternoon came in admiring the elegant, brightly-coloured buildings in the narrow streets of a town that is obviously conscious of having been an important centre in political and social life in Munster for centuries.

Although the O’Briens of Thomond moved their main political centre from Killaloe to Limerick, Killaloe retained its importance for many centuries.

Queen Elizabeth directed Sir Nicholas Malby (1530-1584), Lord President of Connaught, to make a choice in 1579 between Killaloe, Quin and Ennis and to designate one of them as the capital town of Co Clare. Malby chose Ennis.

But Killaloe continued to have strategic importance. Cromwell’s army was encamped for ten days at Ballina in 1650, exploring a passage across the river to Killaloe. Forty years later, the Jacobite army of King James II marched through Killaloe on its way to defend Athlone.

Patrick Sarsfield maintained a strong garrison to defend the river crossing. In August 1690, he crossed the Shannon with a select body of cavalry to destroy an ammunition train on its way to William III’s army at the siege of Limerick City.

Following the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, Killaloe began to take on its present shape and appearance. Many of the houses on Main Street and at the lower end of the town were built in the 18th century, and a distillery was built at John’s Street.

The flourishing woollen and cloth industry employed over 150 people at five shillings a week, there were two weekly markets, and the first Post Office opened in Killaloe in 1793.

By 1837, Killaloe included Saint Flannan’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, one square, a principal street, several smaller streets, about 300 houses, with the Church of Ireland bishop’s palace at Clarisford House. At this time, Saint Flannan’s Roman Catholic Church was being built on the Green.

The Shannon Steam Navigation Company had its headquarters here and had ran regular steam packets up the Shannon, through Lough Derg to Portumna, Athlone and Banagher, and from Banagher by canal boats to Dublin.

However, during the famine years the town of Killaloe lost 191 people, and between 1841 and 1851, the number of inhabited houses in the parish dropped from 1,253 to 920. By 1861 the parish had lost a total of 441 families.

Bridge Street, Killaloe, on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

In Victorian literature, Killaloe is the home town of Phineas Finn, the fictional hero of two of Anthony Trollope’s Palliser novels, Phineas Finn (1869) and Phineas Redux (1874).

In Phineas Finn, Trollope presents Killaloe as a lively, provincial, town. Phineas Finn’s father, Dr Malachai Finn, is well-known and respected ‘in counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway.’ Dr Finn is a friend of the Roman Catholic Bishop, another prominent Killaloe resident, and personal physician to the Earl of Tulla, who lives on his estate ‘not more than ten miles from Killaloe.’

Phineas Finn returns to Killaloe for extended periods to spend time with his parents and with his five sisters and their friend, Miss Mary Flood Jones, who later becomes his first wife.

In the 19th century, Killaloe was described as being pleasantly situated on rising ground on the western bank of the Shannon, near the falls of Killaloe and connected with Co Tipperary by a bridge of 13 arches. The falls have since disappeared beneath the high waters needed for the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme.

Today Killaloe is the southern limit of the recommended navigable part of the River Shannon by small craft. Today, Killaloe is the most important boating and fishing centre within the three counties of Clare, Limerick and Tipperary.

One of the surviving buildings that make a statement about the 19th century importance of Killaloe is Killaloe Courthouse, a detached, five-bay two-storey courthouse built in 1838-1840 for the Clare Grand Jury for £1,000. It has a three-bay, double-height, central block, flanked by breakfront entrance end bays.

The old courthouse in Killaloe closed in 1994. Since then, Killaloe District Court has sat at the Lakeside Hotel in Ballina on the opposite bank of the river, and in the Kincora Hall Hotel, Killaloe, and there was speculation in recent years that the Courts Service was considering moving the court to Ennis.

The Courts Service is reported to be planning to hand over the old courthouse and Clare County Council has expressed an interest in acquiring the building for community use.

Killaloe Courthouse was built for the Clare Grand Jury in 1838-1840 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, a place of prayer and pilgrimage in Lichfield

The Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital facing onto Saint John Street in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Each time I return to Lichfield, I spend some time in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital. These are times for prayer, times of pilgrimage and times for giving thanks.

Saint John’s has remained my spiritual home since my experiences there one summer afternoon in 1971. Going on from there to Choral Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral was a combined experience that marks the beginning of my adult faith and a pilgrimage that would lead eventually to my ordination and priesthood.

I first arrived in Lichfield in my teens, and I began my career in journalism as a freelance contributor to the local newspaper, the Lichfield Mercury. I continue to be grateful for the encouragement and opportunities provided by the Lichfield Mercury and its then editor, Neil Beddows, in the early 1970s.

I came to Lichfield following in the footsteps of my great-grandfather, James Comerford (1817-1902), about 70 years earlier. Like him, I was seeking the story of origins of the Comberford family, which was intimately linked with Lichfield for many generations, spanning centuries of the history of the family.

Canon Roger Williams when he was the Master of Saint John’s, invited me to preach at the mid-week Eucharist in the chapel on 12 August 2009, the day Jeremy Taylor is remembered in the calendar of the Church of England.

In January 2015, Dave Moore, a local historian who makes films on local people and their memories of local history, filmed five interviews with me in this chapel, asking me about faith and ministrt, my family connections with Lichfield, my move from journalism to the ordained priesthood, my grandfather’s part in World War I, and my views on war and nationalism.

Later that year, on the feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist [24 June 2015], I was invited by the 49th Master, Canon Andrew Gorham, to preach at the Festal Eucharist in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital.

Inside the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

On Friday last [23 November 2018], I attended Morning Prayer in Lichfield Cathedral before breakfast, and then, before leaving Lichfield for a meeting of USPG volunteers in Saint Philip’s Cathedral, Birmingham, I spent a little time in prayer in the Chapel of Saint John’s.

The story of the Hospital of Saint John Baptist Without the Barrs of the City of Lichfield – its formal title – is the story of the important place Lichfield had as a centre of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.

Saint Chad is credited with converting the Kingdom of Mercia in the English Midlands to Christianity. After he died in 672, people claimed miracles at his tomb in Lichfield. He was declared a saint in 700, and when his body was moved to the new cathedral in Lichfield, his shrine became a popular place of pilgrimage.

The mediaeval cathedral stood inside a fortified close, protected by a defensive ditch, rampart and expanse of water. The city was enclosed and the four gates or ‘barrs’ were closed at night and did not open again until the morning.

Entering Saint John’s Hospital from Saint John Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Pilgrims who arrived late in the day found their entry was barred, and they were left outside for the night without shelter. To meet their needs, Roger de Clinton, Bishop of Lichfield (1129-1148), built an Augustinian priory just outside the Culstrubbe Gate, where the road from London arrived at the south side of Lichfield.

The priory was completed in 1135 and the house became known as the Hospital of Saint John Baptist without the Barrs. The Augustinian canons or friars were expected to provide food and shelter for travellers arriving late at night.

The hospital chapel, as well as serving the hospital community, was a place of public worship from at least the earlier 13th century. Elaborate precautions, however, were taken to protect the rights of Saint Michael’s Church, in whose parish the hospital stood. By an agreement made in Bishop Stavensby’s time (1224-1238) with the Prebendary of Freeford, the prior and brethren of the hospital and their chaplains promised to maintain the rights of the prebend, to which Saint Michael's was appropriated. In return for these promises, the Prebendary of Freeford allowed the establishment of a chantry in the hospital chapel.

November colours in the grounds of Saint John’s Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

In the 13th century, the Augustinian community at Saint John’s consisted of a prior, brothers and sisters, with a chapel and community buildings. Travellers and pilgrims ate and slept in a long mediaeval hall, with an undercroft below.

For 300 years or more, Saint John’s provided hospitality for travellers and pilgrims, while local people used the chapel as a place of worship. These neighbours were served by a chaplain, and in turn they endowed the hospital and built a chantry chapel. These benefactors included William de Juvenis, still remembered each year with a red rose on the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John Baptist (24 June).

By the mid-15th century, the ditch and ramparts around Lichfield had fallen into disuse and the gates remained open at night for late arriving pilgrims. Times were changing, and when William Smyth became Bishop of Lichfield in 1492, he put Saint John’s to new uses, re-founding the priory in 1495 as a hospital for aged men and as a free grammar school.

New statutes provided for a Master who was a priest appointed by the Bishop of Lichfield. The hospital was to house ‘13 honest poor men upon whom the inconveniences of old age and poverty, without any fault of their own, had fallen.’ They were to receive seven pence a week, they were to be honest and devout, and they were to attend prayers every day.

The mediaeval hall was enlarged to provide a house for the Master of Saint John’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The canons’ and pilgrims’ hall was enlarged to provide a house for the master and a new wing was added to the old building. This new ‘almshouse,’ with its row of eight chimneys, provided each almsman or resident with his own room and fireplace.

When the dissolution of the monasteries began 40 years later in 1536, the changes made by Bishop William Smyth a generation earlier ensured the survival of Saint John’s as a hospital or almshouse and as a school.

The grammar school was separated from the hospital in 1692, but the school continued to use the chapel, and the schoolboys included local worthies such as Joseph Addison, Elias Ashmole, Samuel Johnson and David Garrick. Edward Maynard rebuilt the Master’s Hall once again in 1720 to keep up with modern Georgian architectural tastes, and the stone tablet above the doorway dates from this period.

The noticeboard at Saint John’s, at the east end of the chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

By the early 19th century, Saint John’s must have had the character and the problems described by Anthony Trollope in his novels, including The Warden and Barchester Towers. A north aisle was added to the chapel in 1829, and a new three-bay arcade was built.

In another major restoration in 1870-1871, the Master of Saint John’s, Philip Hayman Dod (1810-1883), repaired and renovated the chapel, raising the walls of the nave, building a new roof, and adding buttresses outside and a stone bell-cote and bell.

The door into the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Rev Denham Rowe Norman was the last master to govern the hospital and administer its estates under the statutes of 1495. When he tendered his resignation to the Bishop of Lichfield in 1925, he had been in orders for 70 years and was one of the oldest clergymen in England.

The almsmen’s rooms at Saint John’s were rearranged in 1929 to overlook the court or quadrangle, giving them more light and modern heating and sanitation. The Master’s House was renovated in 1958, new flats were added in the mid-1960s, and the inner quadrangle was completed with a new building. In the 1960s too, for the first time, married couples were allowed to take residence in the hospital.

When Lichfield Theological College in the Cathedral Close closed in 1976, new accommodation was provided in what became the Hospital of Saint John’s within the Close.

The Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, and the Tudor East Façade of Saint John’s Hospital facing onto Saint John Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Chapel has a single-vessel nave and sanctuary, with a north aisle that was added in 1829. At the east end there is a coped gable with kneelers and offset angle buttresses to the right. There is a segmental-pointed window of five double-cusped lights, a small window with a pointed arch above, and an enriched 19th century rainwater head to the left. The blind return has a cornice.

The exterior of the north aisle has a coped west gable with kneelers, a gabled bell cote, and angle buttresses. The three-light west window has intersecting tracery. The north return has similar windows flanking the buttress and stack.

The south elevation of Saint John’s Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The south elevation of the chapel has offset buttresses, and a double-chamfered pointed entrance to left end; a two-light plate tracery window, a lancet, a three-light window and a two-light square-headed window, both with Perpendicular tracery, and a traceried lancet at the right end.

The High Altar, Sanctuary and East Window in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Inside, the chapel roof has cusped arch braces to the collars and queen struts. The sanctuary has a blocked thee-light square-headed window on the northside.

The main body of the chapel seen from the north aisle and through the three-bay arcade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The three-bay arcade at the north aisle has octagonal piers and head stops to the hoods. The north aisle has a kingpost roof.

The sanctuary has bolection-moulded fielded panelling, a fluted frieze and cornice, a large central panel with a frieze with grapes and wheat, a piscina on the south with an arch over the restored bowl, a gabled tabernacle and encaustic tiles.

Looking towards the west end of the chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The west end has a vestibule with re-used panelling, and there are monuments to members of the Simpson family at the west end.

Charles Eamer Kempe’s window depicting Saint John the Baptist and Saint George (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Entering the chapel at the west end, there are two facing windows of similar style by the Victorian stained-glass designer and manufacturer Charles Eamer Kempe (1837-1907). Kempe was best known in the late Victorian period for his stained-glass windows, some of which can also be seen in Lichfield Cathedral. The Cambridge Church Historian Owen Chadwick, who died in 2015, once said Kempe’s work represents ‘the Victorian zenith’ of church decoration and stained glass windows.

One Kempe window, portraying Saint John the Baptist and Saint George the Martyr is memory of Captain Peter Charles Gillies Webster (1836-1877), Adjutant of the Staffordshire Yeomanry.

Saint Philip the Apostle, representing Philip Hayman Dod, and Bishop William Smyth in a window that may be the work of CE Kempe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The facing window, portraying Saint Philip the Apostle and Bishop William Smyth, commemorates Philip Wayman Dod (1810-1883), who was the Master of Saint John’s (1842-1883) and undertook the repair and arrangement of the chapel in 1871.

Above Saint Philip is the coat-of-arms of the Bishops of Lichfield; above Bishop Smyth is his coat-of-arms as Bishop of Lichfield. Around Saint Philip’s head, a scroll reads: ‘We have found Jesus of Nazareth’ (see John 1: 45).

Bishop Smyth is holding a crozier with his left hand and in his right hand he holds an illustration of the chapel. Above him, the words on a scroll read: ‘Except the Lord build the house’ (Psalm 127: 1).

The window depicting Christ with the children commemorates Catherine Browne of The Friary, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A two-light window, ‘Suffer the Little Children’ is in memory of Catherine Browne (1813-1880) of The Friary, Lichfield, a local doctor’s wife. The Biblical text in the lower window reads: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God’ (see Matthew 19: 14; Luke 18: 16; Mark 10; 14).

The dedication reads: ‘To the glory of God and in memory of Catherine, the wife of William Browne MD of the Friary, born 12th July 1813, died 6th December 1880.’

The large window depicting Christ the Healer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The large window on the south wall is the earliest stained-glass in the chapel and dates from ca 1855. It depicts Christ healing the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5: 1-16).

This window has no dedication, but the choice of this image from Saint John’s Gospel alludes to Saint John’s title as a ‘hospital.’

John Piper’s striking East Window in Saint John’s, ‘Christ in Majesty’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

John Piper’s magnificent stained-glass window depicting ‘Christ in Majesty’, executed by Patrick Reyntiens, was placed in the east window of the chapel in 1984.

This is a work of great solemnity and power in strong colours, and is John Piper’s last major undertaking. It shows Christ in Majesty, with the Mercian cross offset, and surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists: Saint Matthew (man), Saint Mark (winged lion), Saint Luke (bull) and Saint John (eagle).

The design was influenced by Piper’s drawings of Romanesque sculptures in the Dordogne and Saintonge areas in western France in 1955-1975.

The shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the style of the Italian ceramicist Lucca della Robbia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

In the north aisle, the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary is in the style of the Italian ceramicist Lucca della Robbia.

Station 14 of the 14 Stations of the Cross along the north wall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

There are 14 Stations of the Cross along the north wall.

The Triptych (1999) of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist on the east wall of the north aisle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A Triptych of wooden plaques (1999) depicting the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist is on the east wall of the north aisle. This is the work of a nun.

The octagonal Baptism font is also placed in the north aisle.

The organ (1972) is by Hill, Norman and Beard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

At the west end of the north aisle, the organ (1972) is by Hill, Norman and Beard. Beside the organ is a framed list of the Priors, Master or Wardens of Saint John’s from 1257.

‘Come Holy Spirit’ … The holy water stoup in the vestibule (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Since the Tractarian Revival, the Chapel of Saint John’s has stood in the Catholic tradition of the Church of England. The chapel continues to provide daily and weekly services, and regularly draws a congregation of residents and visitors, offering a daily and weekly round of services from Common Worship, under the direction of the Master, the Revd Helen Maria Barton.

There is a Said Eucharist every Sunday (8.30) and Wednesday (9.15), the Eucharist with hymns on Sundays at 10 a.m., a Solemn Eucharist on the First Sunday of the Month (10 a.m.), Founders’ Prayers at 9 a.m. from Monday to Friday, as well as baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

The Tudor East Façade of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield, on the corner of Saint John Street and Birmingham Road … its eight chimney stacks are a landmark in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018; click on image for full-screen view)

At the beginning of this century, the original 1495 east wing of Saint John’s was renovated, enlarged and updated. The hospital façade of this east wing faces Saint John Street has eight large projecting stacks with offsets, and an offset buttress to right end.

The entrance, between the sixth and seventh stacks has a Tudor head in an architrave, with a label mould battened door with strap hinges. The oval plaque above, erected in 1720, records the re-founding of the hospital in 1495, and a cartouche above bears the heraldic arms of Bishop William Smyth.

The plaque from 1720 records the re-founding of the hospital in 1495, and a cartouche above bears the heraldic arms of Bishop Smyth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Most of the windows on this façade are small, with brick sills, chamfered jambs and ashlar lintels, and leaded glazing. There is a larger window to the left of the cartouche, the windows to the right of entrance are larger, where the window on the ground floor has a brick label, while that on the first floor has a two-light casement with small-paned glazing.

The right end has two small windows on the ground floor and a later gabled oriel above, with a 1:3:1-light single-chamfered-mullioned window. The right return next to the chapel has a blocked elliptical-headed window and leaded light. The left end has 1929 additions forming a canted angle and wing to the rear, additions from 1966 of a single-storey return wing and a two-storey rear wing.

Words of wisdom from William Penn at the entrance to Saint John’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The rear elevation has a four-centred entrance to a cross-passage with a brick arch and niche above with a 19th century statue of Saint John the Baptist. There are two-light, three-light and single-light windows to the left; to the right are six two-storey canted bays of 1929 with 1:2:1-light windows.

In recent years, 18 new apartments have been built at Saint John’s without the Barrs. The project was delayed when 50 mediaeval skeletal remains – adults and children alike – were found in shallow graves. Their remains may help archaeologists learn more about the lives, times and habits of mediaeval pilgrims.

‘Noah and the Dove,’ a sculpture by Simon Manby, was commissioned in 2006 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

A sculpture of ‘Noah and the Dove’ by Simon Manby was commissioned by the trustees in 2006 and stands in the quadrangle. Manby created this statue in his studio in the Weaver Hills in north Staffordshire. It shows the dove returning to Noah with a fresh olive branch at the end of the flood.

With its distinctive row of eight Tudor chimneys fronting Saint John Street, Saint John’s Hospital remains a living landmark in Lichfield, and the grounds remain an oasis of peace and calm in the heart of the cathedral city.

The grounds of Saint John’s remain an oasis of peace and calm in the heart of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)