THE PICTURES: Top: A photograph of Bishop William. It would have been
taken around 1855, at a guess. The quality is quite poor due to it being a scanned photocopy of a book page. Taken from "The English Catholics
1850-1950", edited by GA Beck and published in 1950, it's not currently available to me, unfortunately.
Middle: The building on the left,
is Bishop William Hogarth's house in Coniscliffe Road, Darlington, County Durham. Behind it (not shown) is St. Augustine's Catholic church. Just
to the left of his house, is one of the entrances to the church which he founded. The building, next door on the right, is Hogarth's / The Bishop's
House (sic) - It's a cafe bar. In view of his inclination to turn husbands out of pubs, when the hour was late, I'm not sure that this is an
arrangement he would have entirely approved of!
Left: The plaque affixed to the
front of the house where he lived from 1824 until his death in 1866.
Right: The plaque affixed to the
wall of the housing development, stage right and out of shot, which was built in his memory.
BISHOP WILLIAM HOGARTH'S LIFE: Mr Robin Gard, archivist for the Catholic Diocese of
Hexham & Newcastle and editor of the 'Northern Catholic History', responded to my enquiries most generously, with the picture of Bishop
William, above and the following biographical information which had been submitted to 'The Dictionary of National Biography'. This work is
available on CD-ROM 0-19-268312-8 from the Oxford University Press, priced at £411.25 (but postage is free).
Hogarth, William, D.D. (1786-1866). The first
Roman Catholic bishop of Hexham & Newcastle, was born on 25 March 1786 at Dodding Green,
near Kendal, Westmorland, where his family had retained their faith and their lands through penal times.
William and his elder brother Robert
(1785-1868) were educated from 1796 as church students at Crook Hall college, Durham, where students from the English secular college at
Douai had settled in 1794 and which was removed to Ushaw in 1808. They both survived an outbreak of typhus at the college in the winter
of 1808/09 during which five fellow students died, and were among the first to be ordained priests at Ushaw, Robert in March 1809 and William in
the following December. Robert was engaged on pastoral work most of his life but William remained at Ushaw as professor, prefect
general and procurator from 1811 to 1816, during which time Charles Newsham and Nicholas Wiseman were among his pupils.
In 1816 he was appointed chaplain to the Lawson family at
Cliffe Hall, and when the Cliffe and Darlington missions were united in in 1824 he transferred to Darlington, where he passed the rest of his
life. From 1838 he was vicar generally successively to bishops Briggs, Mostyn, and Riddell, vicars apostolic of the northern district.
In 1848 he succeeded Dr Riddell as vicar apostolic and was consecrated bishop of Samosata, in partibus, at Ushaw on 24 August. When
the hierarchy was restored by Pius IX he was translated to the new see of Hexham, renamed Hexham and Newcastle in 1861.
Throughout his life he retained a close interest in the affairs of
Ushaw College. He supported his friend Charles Newsham, fifth president, in his plans for its major expansion between 1848 and 1858 and
advocated its independence from episcopal control. He was older than most of his episcopal colleagues and while not aloof from
ecclesiastical politics he preferred to concentrate his energies on promoting the interests of his diocese, rather in the spirit of the former vicars
apostolic - It is said that every church or chapel had been either built or enlarged under his management. Even so, he was well respected
by fellow bishops and was a friend and confidant of Nicholas Wiseman.
Although somewhat rough in manner, he was well known for his
personal kindness and he generously supported all good causes in Darlington, irrespective of religious denomination. He built St
Augustine's church in 1827 and was much loved by his own congregation, which he increased from 200 in 1824 to 3,000 in 1866. He was,
above all, an energetic and capable administrator who established his new diocese on a sound footing. He died at Darlington on 29
January 1866, aged 79 years, and was buried at Ushaw college. In an article entitled +CROSSWISE+ which,
I'm told, came from a edition of the 'Northern Echo' (date unknown), Canon Robert Spence gives an account of Bishop William:
Tribute to Hogarth
Corrigendum: I have been advised by a diligent visitor (Guestbook - 31 May 2002), that the reference to Thomas Mewburn is wrong, in as much as his given name was actually Francis. It just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read in a newspaper! |