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Richard Enraght

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Revd Richard William Enraght (1837 - 1898) was an Irish born Church of England clergyman of the late nineteenth century. He was heavly influenced by the Tractarians and the Oxford Movement and is amongst the number of priests commonly called “Second Generation” Anglo-Catholics.

Fr. Enraght’s belief in the Church of England's Catholic Tradition, his promotion of ritualism in worship, and his writings on Catholic Worship and Church-State relationships, led him into conflict with the Public Worship Regulation Act of 1874, for which he paid the ultimate price of prosecution and imprisonment for conscience sake.

Revd Richard W. Enraght's Ministry

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St Andrew Church, Portslade

As Curate in Portslade

In 1871, after previously serving as a Curate to Fr Arthur Wagner the Vicar of St. Paul's Church in Brighton, Revd Richard William Enraght SSC began his ministry at St. Andrew Church Portslade by Sea. He was appointed to the new Parish of St Andrew’s Portslade by Sea by the Vicar of St Nicolas Church Portslade who at that time held the patronage of St Andrews. Fr Enraght’s appointment was not without controversy. There was an unsuccessful appeal to the Bishop of Chichester by the Vicar of the neighbouring Parish of Southwick who questioned the authority of the Vicar of Portslade to make the appointment of a priest to this new Parish of St Andrew Church Portslade by Sea.

Fr Enraght was very active in his defence of Ritualism in published pamphlets and letters to the The Brighton Gazette promoting adherence to the English Catholic Tradition within The Church of England. As Curate in Charge of Portslade by Sea, Fr. Enraght published the pamphlets "Catholic Worship" which promoted the importance and necessity of ritual in worship and the "The Real Presence and Holy Scripture" of which the Church Times described as "A masterly exposition of the texts which more directly relate to the Blessed Eucharist"

These writings put him on a collision course with the pro PWR. Act local newspaper the Brighton Gazette who were sensitive to any hint of ritualism in worship. From the pages of the same newspaper Fr Enraght was accused of Puseyism (used here as a term of abuse) and of trying to turn the local St Nicolas Church School in Portslade into a Puseyite school. The letter column of the Brighton Gazette carried this personal attack on Fr Enraght made by a Mr Gossett, a Portslade anti-ritualist, "The Revd Mr.Enraght, whose doctrines, if they were not doctrines of the Church of Rome, he (Mr.Gossett) was ignorant to what Church they belonged"

In the 1870s, Fr. Enraght was an officer of the Brighton Branch of the Society of the Holy Cross, the Branch was spoken of by its national officers, “as one of the most promising and was carrying on a vigorous campaign in Brighton”. While living in Brighton and Portslade, Fr Enraght served as the Organising Secretary for the National Association for the Promotion of Freedom of Worship, and campaigned for the abolition of "pew-rents"

The atmosphere in Brighton

The atmosphere in Brighton, created by the local press was very hostile to High Churchman, The Brighton Gazette was highly vitriolic towards any clergy that adhered to the English Catholic Tradition. An example of their reporting, Thursday 21st May 1874:

The Revd R. W. Enraght of Portslade has given notice of his intentions to hold a “Retreat”-our readers will not have forgotten what sort of things these “retreats” are - at Lancing College in August next. The rev. gentleman’s name appears in the roll of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament for 1872, so that here we get another peep into the interior economy of those notorious “Woodard Schools”, of which Lancing College is the headquarters.

The same newspaper earlier in 1873 published a report that Fr.Wagner of the Church of St. Paul, Brighton, had refused in court to answer questions that would “involve him to breach the confessional”. As a result of this article, Fr. Wagner was brutally assaulted on the streets of Brighton. His assailants went to prison but Fr. Wagner characteristically supported their wives and families at his own expense. In 1874 the Government, under the leadership of Disraeli, with the backing of both Primates and many Bishops, decided to crush ritualism in the Church of England by passing the Public Worship Regulation Act.

Fr. John Purchas of St James Church Brighton was prosecuted under this act for using vestments and the eastward position. The case took three years to conclude and resulted in the Church of England paying £7,661 in costs (Fr Purchas had placed his property in his wife's name so unable to pay the costs). To appreciate the scale of these costs, a house in Portslade could be rented for £13 a year in 1874. Fr. Purchas was removed from his Parish and some commentators believe his persecution led to his early death.

It must be added that Fr Wagner was the leading light of the Catholic Revival in Brighton with his prolific church building and generous charitable works for the poor, all at his own expense. Fr Wagner, Fr Purchas, Fr Enraght and the many other Brighton Anglo-Catholic priests all carried out their ministries to large sympathetic congregations. The local press spoke only for a minority in their campaign to use the Public Worship Regulation Act to rid ritualism from the churches of Brighton. From the Brighton Gazettes editorial for the 23rd April 1874 on the topic of the Public Worship Regulation Act, quote, "Let us have the law obeyed and let there be an easy mode of redress from offending clergyman"

The situation in Bordesley, Birmingham and London

The situation in Bordesley, West Midlands in 1865 was as follows, Reverend James Pollock was invited by Dr. Oldknow, the well-known Tractarian Vicar of Holy Trinity, Bordesley, to start a Mission among the newcomers in a part of his parish. Eventually, to ensure continuity of the Mission it was necessary to set up a separate District for St Alban’s, and until that was done James Pollock could only officiate as a curate of Holy Trinity. Eventually the new District of St Alban the Martyr was created by Order in Council in 1871. Fr Enraght was appointed Vicar of Holy Trinity in 1874. The two parishes enjoyed a close connection both geographically and through the High Church Tradition and friendship of both priests, Fr. Pollock and Fr. Enraght, who were both graduates of Trinity College, Dublin.

Birmingham was the equal to Brighton in hostilities to High Church Anglicans from the Church Association, a radical group of Protestants, who had unlimited funds to mount prosecutions. The Church Association sort to separate Priests from their congregations by registering its members in these parishes, so as to become “aggrieved parishioners” and therefore the clergy could be prosecuted under the new PWR Act. In one parish in the north of England they resorted to bribing parishioners to speak out against their priest.

In London, the situation was no better. Fr. Lowder, the founder of the Society of the Holy Cross, was threatened with prosecution under the Public Worship Regulation Act but escaped prosecution by the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury who feared the consequences of such a high profile Anglo-Catholic being put on trial

On the 1st August 1880, Fr. Richard Enraght was invited to London to preach at the Church of St Peter’s, London Docks, by Fr. Charles Fuge Lowder, for High Celebration to mark the 4th anniversary of The Church of England Working Men’s Society. Sadly this was the last service at St. Peters that Fr. Lowder would attend, as he died a few weeks later while on holiday in Austria.

Imprisonment

 
Illustration of Fr. Richard Enraght entering Warwick Prison in 1880

As Fr Enraght practices at Holy Trinity, Bordesley included, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the use of eucharistic lights, chasuble and alb, the ceremonial mixing of water and communion wine, making the sign of the Cross towards the congregation during the Holy Communion service, bowing his head at the Gloria and allowing the Agnus Dei to be sung, all which his Bishop, Dr. Philpott forbade, he then became a target of the Church Association.

"If the English Church be true portion of the one Catholic Church of Christ," argued Fr. Enraght, "is it not only reasonable that her Church buildings and services should resemble those of other branches of the Church Catholic."

He was convicted under the PWR Act and sentenced to 49 days in Warwick Prison in 1880/81 The trial became known as the “Bordesley Wafer Case”, the narration is from “The History of the English Church Union”, 1859-94:

On August 31st, 1879, Mr Enraght denounced from the altar the conduct of a person who, on February 9th, had carried off from the altar a Consecrated Wafer, obtained under the pretence of communicating, in order to file It as an exhibit in the law courts as evidence of the use of wafer-bread. A feeling of intense horror and indignation was excited when the fact of this fearful sacrilege became known. It was difficult to credit the fact that a consecrated Wafer, after having been sacrilegiously secreted by a pretended communicant, had actually been delivered to Mr Churchwarden Perkins, the prosecutor, produced in Court as evidence, marked with pen and ink and filed as an exhibit! Thanks to some members of the Council of English Church Union, the Consecrated Wafer was obtained from the court and given over to the care of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who reverently consumed It in his private chapel at Addington on Friday December 12th, 1879.

It may be added that the indignant parishioners at the next ensuing vestry rejected Mr Perkins when nominated as churchwarden.

Fr. Enraght’s imprisonment became widely known in the USA. On the 19th December 1880 a sermon was preached in St. Ignatius Church in New York, on The Imprisonment of English Priests for Conscience Sake by Revd Dr. Ewer, S.T.D., who praised the English priests stand, as simply a determined resistance to a violation of Magna Charta,and was proud to make common cause with them, so far as is possible, from this distance, and feeling that when one member of the Catholic Church suffers, all the members suffer with him, the text was printed in full in the New York Herald and New York Tribune the following morning, (there were also four other priests who served prison sentences in England, Arthur Tooth, T. Pelham Dale, Sidney Faithorn Green and James Bell Cox).

While in Prison Fr Enraght received a letter of support from the Conference of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in the USA, "to express the sympathy of the Conference for Fr R.W.Enraght in his incarceration for conscience’s sake." In England, the Revd Prof. Edward Bouverie Pusey wrote a letter to the editor of The Times defending both Fr Richard Enraght and Fr Alexander Heriot Mackonochie saying, they have not been struggling for themselves but for their people. The Ritualists do not ask to interfere with devotion of others ….only to be allowed, in their worship of God, to use a Ritual which a few years ago no one disputed.

It appears that through the failure of an appeal to the House of Lords in May 1882 by Fr Enraght, he became liable to another term of imprisonment. Three months later, under the provisions of the PWR Act, the benefice of Holy Trinity, Bordesley became vacant, although still canonically held by Fr Enraght. Another clergyman was presented to the benefice against the wishes of Fr Enraght's former congregation.

Later life and legacy

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Fr. Richard William Enraght's gravesite at St. Swithun’s Church

After being released from prison and continuing his ministry at St Michael Church, Bromley-by-Bow and St Gabriel Church, South Bromley in East London, this priest of conscience and conviction arrived, at St Swithun Church Bintree in 1895 to end his ministry and life in a quiet country parish in Norfolk.

Fr. Enraght died on St Matthew’s Day, September 21st, 1898 and is buried at the south east end of St Swithun’s churchyard, Bintree. His grave is that of a “Confessor” (someone who suffered for the faith, while not dying for it). Two windows of the Lady Chapel, depicting the Annunciation of Our Lady are dedicated to Fr. Enraght as well as a statue of St. Swithun above the porch, inscribed: “It is placed as a memorial to a great and good priest Richard William Enraght”.

In 1933, the Catholic Literature Association issued the following tribute to Fr. Richard Enraght and the four other priests that had been imprisoned:

The names of those who suffered the indignity of imprisonment were Arthur Tooth, Vicar of St. James', Hatcham; R. W. Enraght, Rector of Holy Trinity, Bordesley; T. Pelham Dale, Rector of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, in the City of London; Sidney Faithorn Green, Rector of St John's, Miles Platting; and James Bell Cox, Vicar of St. Margaret's, Liverpool. . . . To these brave priests and many others who suffered we owe a great tribute of thankfulness and praise, for it was through their determination to stand by the Church in her hour of peril that we have won the tolerance and liberty we have today.

In September 2006, Brighton & Hove Buses honoured Fr Richard Enraght’s memory by naming one of their new fleet buses after this former Priest of St. Andrew Church Portslade and the Church of St. Paul, Brighton. His name appears in the List of Brighton and Hove buses named after famous people.

Timeline of Fr.Richard Enraght SSC Life & Ministry

(dismissed by the Bishop of Worcester at Easter 1883, moved to Monpellier Street, Brighton to convalesce, before taking the Curacy at Bromley by Bow in London)

Publications by Fr. Enraght

  • "To The Poor The Gospel is Preached" - a sermon (with a preface) advocating the right of the people to freedom of public worship in "The Church of the People", 1865.
  • "Bible-Ritualism Indispensably Necessary for Purposes of Instruction & of Worship" - a sermon, 1866.
  • "Who Are True Churchmen, and Who Are Conspirators?" - an appeal to the Last Settlement of the English Reformation in 1662 (1870), written while a Curate at St Paul's Brighton.
  • "The Real Presence and Holy Scripture" (1872), written while Curate in Charge of Portslade by Sea.
  • "Catholic Worship not Pharisaic-Judaism" (1873), written while Curate in Charge of Portslade by Sea.
  • "Not Law, But Unconstitutional Tyranny" - a lecture on the "Present Unconstitutional Exercise of the Royal Supremacy in Matters Spiritual", 1877.
  • "A Pastoral to the Faithful Worshipping at Holy Trinity, Bordesley" - Birmingham, July 20th, 1879.
  • "My Ordination Oaths and other Declarations: am I Keeping Them?" (1880).
  • "An Aggrieved Parish, or The Minutes of the Easter vestries in the Parish of Holy Trinity, Birmingham", from 1878 to 1881, with an address delivered in 1881.
  • "My Prosecution under the Public Worship Regulation Act" - a statement laid before the most Rev. the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, 1883.

Notable excerpts

Letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Bishop of Worcester

ADDINGTON PARK, CROYDEN, Dec.12, 1879 MY DEAR LORD, An application was, I understood, this day made in the Arches Court by the counsel for the promoters in the case of ‘Perkins v Enraght’ for the delivery to them of all the documents and other exhibits which had been used as evidence in the case, on the ground that the time for appeal had passed, and the case might be now discharged. The Dean of the Arches having acceded to this application, a certain wafer, alleged to have been consecrated by Mr. Enraght, in the service of Holy Communion, instead of the bread directed by our Church to be employed for this purpose, was placed in my hands by request of the Proctors for the prosecution. I have taken care that the wafer should be reverently consumed, since however irregular may have been the mode of administering the Holy Communion, the fact seems now clear to me, though in no way brought before the Court, that this wafer was used in that administration. I have therefore thought that it ought to be disposed of as rubric directs, Believe me, my dear Lord, yours very truly, A. C. CANTUAR

(The Archbishop of Canterbury in 1879 was Archibald Campbell Tait)

The text from an 1880 protest poster against the Public Worship Regulation Act

THE VICTORIAN PERSECUTION
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
B.C.
533 Three Jews cast into a Fiery Furnace for conscience’ sake.
583 Daniel cast into the Den of Lions for conscience’ sake.
A.D.
28 S. John the Baptist cast into prison for conscience’ sake.
32 Our Blessed Lord Crucified to vindicate “the Law.”
51 SS. Peter and John cast into Prison for Preaching Christ.
55 S. Stephen stoned to death for conscience’ sake.
68 SS. Peter and Paul put to death for conscience’ sake.
1555 Hooper, Ridley and Latimer burned for conscience’ sake.
1556 Cranmer burnt for conscience’ sake.
1876 Arthur Tooth imprisoned for conscience’ sake.
1880 T. Pelham Dale, R.W. Enraght, for conscience’ sake, and.
They are in Gaol now, in this year 1880 of Our Lord, and 43rd of Victoria, and, by
God’s Grace, may they light such a candle as shall never be put out

See also

References

  • Rev. G. Bayfield Roberts. The History of the English Church Union 1859-1894
  • J. Embry, The Catholic Movement and the Society of the Holy Cross.
  • William Pitt McCune. History of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in the United States of America
  • Rev.Dr. Ferdinand Cartwright Ewer. Sanctity and Other Sermons
  • The Catholic Literature Association. "What is the Oxford Movement?"
  • The Brighton Gazette
  • Birmingham Daily Post
  • James Bentley Ritualism & Politics in Victorian Britain (1978).
  • L.E.Ellsworth, Charles Lowder (1982)
  • The 1885 Edition of Showell’s Dictionary of Birmingham
  • Project Canterbury/Enraght
  • A & P Robinson. Outline of The Ministry of Fr. Enraght (Church of St Alban the Martyr, Highgate, Birmingham)

Further reading

  • Richard William Enraght (1837-1898), Rector of Bintry, Controversialist 1879-81: correspondence and papers on his prosecution for ritualist practices held at Lambeth Palace Library, Reference - Archibald Campbell Tait, NRA 8476 Tait
  • William Ewart Gladstone - letters to Revd. R. W. Enraght, Gladstone's Diaries, (18th March 1880, Midlothian Campaigns).
There may indeed be cases in which two matters before the inferior court are so distinct that a writ of prohibition may go as to the one and not as to the other. But when the leading charge is within its jurisdiction, and the other charge, though varying in form, is for the same or similar acts, like a second count in an indictment, and the same sentence may be awarded on the first charge as upon both, a writ of prohibition should not issue.
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