by Adams, Byron
Mixed up as all classes of Catholics are with Protestants, it is the height of cruelty not to arm them with fit weapons to fight the battle of faith against its enemies. We must recollect that religious controversy is not confined to the pulpit, the platform, and the periodical. It is not the especial privilege of the noble and the wealthy. Its sounds are heard as loudly in the workshop, the kitchen, and the field, as in the halls of a university. Boys and girls begin the intellectual struggle.31
Catholic education, then, was an integral part of the struggle. And that battle extended beyond merely preserving elements of pride. The articles in The Rambler divide Catholic education from that of their Protestant counterparts, viewing it as elemental to the preservation of the soul
because Protestantism, though it may instruct the mind, yet is utterly powerless to train the soul; it may store the memory with knowledge, and even enforce a certain outward decency of conduct in morals, but it cannot penetrate man’s nature in the inmost recesses of his heart; and without this, education is but a dream.32
Consequently, education that “armed” Catholics with a generous religious and theological underpinning was viewed as necessary to the moral, cultural, and political survival of English Catholics. Other subjects were possible, but anything for the young Catholic had to be grounded in religion first and religion foremost.33
Elgar began his education in 1863 and over the course of the next few years attended three distinctly different types of schools: a Dame school primarily for girls; a mixed school at Spetchley Park; and, from about 1869 to 1872, a school for young gentlemen at Littleton House. All three schools were Catholic, and all three emphasized elements of religion over all other subjects—at least according to the evidence that has survived.
Caroline Walsh, who ran the Dame school, was, like Elgar’s mother, a convert to Catholicism.34 Her calling to the Church stretched into the more fervent “Second Spring” variety and her conversion around 1846 was only a first step. She quickly joined the Daughters of the Heart of Mary (taking their threefold vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience) and attended their Charing Cross school for about four months in 1851 as preparation for religious education work in Worcester. When not teaching the students, she ministered to Worcester’s spiritual welfare by walking “round among the poor Catholics of the town. She obliged the sluggards to leave their beds and prevented them from missing Mass.”35 Her rooms at Britannia Square were in what was evidently considered a convent by the Catholic hierarchy since she was given the title of Superior in 1852. The school was supported by the small tuition payments made by students like Elgar and his sisters, as well as a grant of £245 made by Henry Foley.36
St. Anne’s, the school at Spetchley Park, is a bit more difficult to pin down. A charity school, it existed from 1842 until 1986. Initially, the Berkeley family, members of the local Catholic gentry, created the school for all children of the community—Catholic or Protestant.37 It is likely (though currently not known) that by the time Elgar attended St. Anne’s in the mid–1860s, it was entirely a Catholic foundation. Between 1857 and 1863 (before Elgar arrived at the school), the Sisters of St. Paul ran the institution.38 As an order, they were influenced by their continental roots (the Sisters of St. Paul were founded in the eighteenth century in Chartres and arrived in England from France in 1847; the order did not become independent in England until 1864) and by their growing numbers, who were both Old English Catholics and converts. According to the Berkeley family, Elgar attended the school for two terms, so it is likely he arrived in 1867 or 1868, because he began attending his next school in 1869.39
Littleton House, Francis Reeve’s school, unlike Walsh’s or St. Anne’s, was a for-profit enterprise. It tailored “Young gentlemen … for Commercial pursuits” and was a fixture of the Worcester Roman Catholic world.40 Reeve, according to Jerrold Northrop Moore, initially wanted to be a priest, but after a childhood fall he was banned from that ambition since nineteenthcentury Catholicism required the purported guise of both spiritual and material perfection: any bodily injury or chronic ailment destroyed the opportunity for a young man or woman to take holy orders.41 Instead, Reeve followed a different path: he married, had a number of children, and taught Catholic boys. According to the Census of 1871 (the year Elgar and his friend Hubert Leicester neared the completion of their attendance of Reeve’s school), Reeve and his wife, Lucy (listed as “Assistant to Schoolmaster”), maintained twenty-two boarding students aged six to sixteen (four of them their oldest sons) in addition to their four other children younger than age six.42 Reeve also took day students from the town, such as Elgar and Leicester. Basil Maine stated that when Elgar attended Reeve’s school there were about thirty students there.43
Advertisements for Reeve’s school note that besides engaging in subject studies, “students attend Mass daily.”44 This agrees with the general discussions of midcentury English-Catholic education. Perhaps the most striking element of such descriptions is how much time was spent conforming to ideas of Catholic ritual and prayer:
The pattern of the school was fitted to the Church year. On Holidays of Obligation the children attended Mass in the morning and then had the afternoon off. This happened for the Feasts of the Ascension, Whitsun, Corpus Christi, Saints Peter and Paul and All Saints; also Epiphany and the Assumption if they fell during term. This was of course in addition to attendances at Sunday Mass, Benediction, and catechism, which were also the responsibility of the schools. Children were questioned on Monday morning and those who had not been to Mass were punished… . The regular [school] routine included daily prayers each morning and hymn singing.45
The round of required mass attendance, continual professions of faith, and submission to the Catholic calendar would have created a further sense of community for Catholic children and held them apart from their Protestant neighbors.
Part of the Faithful Child avatar intersects with Elgar’s attempt to mythologize his past, to create a serviceable and romantic history for himself. His schooling was part of this, and when later recalling it for biographers and friends he used Reeve as a touchstone for his religious oratorios. Elgar gave Reeve credit for planting the seed of the plot and purpose of The Apostles in a well-known anecdote which was published in most Elgar biographies after it appeared in 1905 in Robert J. Buckley’s early interview-based study:
The idea of the work originated in this way. Mr. Reeve, addressing his pupils, once remarked: “The Apostles were poor men, young men, at the time of their calling; perhaps before the descent of the Holy Ghost not cleverer than some of you here.” This set me thinking, and the oratorio of 1903 is the result.46
The mythological genesis of the work lent Elgar a sense of purpose for The Apostles beyond the merely musical: it fastened the composition to Christian education.
Central to the progression of Elgar’s early faith and education was his relationship to the Worcester parish of St. George’s. Though a student at Walsh’s Dame school and Littleton House, typical religious instruction for Catholics at midcentury was handled by the parish priest, who might visit the school several times a week to teach and catechize the students.47 During most of Elgar’s school years, there were two priests at St. George’s, the most permanent being Father William Waterworth, S.J.48 Waterworth arrived in Worcester during 1857 and left in 1878.49 He had an impressive pedigree for a parish priest posted to a sleepy provincial town: education at a Jesuit grammar school in London followed by seminary at Stonyhurst, the most celebrated Catholic public school in England, where students were taught at a level comparable to Cambridge or Oxford; rector of the Jesuit Church of St. James’s, Spanish Place, one of the most important Catholic churches in London; and confessor to Henry Edward (later Cardinal) Manning.50 Fr. Waterworth certainly encouraged Ultramontane theology when he gave an eleven-year-old Elgar a votive picture of St. Joseph, with a simple French text, and likely would have instructed Elgar to pray to such an image.51 Two prayers to St. Joseph were commonly availabl
e to Catholics in The Garden of the Soul; each asks for intercession from Joseph.52
Most sources, be they Worcestershire history or Elgar biography, present Fr. Waterworth as an erudite, affable individual loved by his Catholic parishioners and local Protestants alike. Fr. Brian Doolan’s brief history St. George’s, Worcester: 1590–1999 is typical of the Waterworth hagiography, noting that the priest was
described by his Jesuit obituarist as “a model of Rectors.” … He was a considerable scholar who had been destined for an academic career but this was impeded by delicate health. He lectured regularly to the “Worcester Cathedral Institute,” contributed articles to The Rambler and The Dublin Review and was a notable preacher. He was on the warmest personal terms with the Dean and Canons of the Cathedral and other Protestant divines in the city.53
If this is the case, Waterworth must also have been charming and disarming, for his writings are militantly pro-Catholic, almost to the point of anti-Protestant condescension. Elgar’s primary religious teacher and leader wrote a number of books that take the rhetorical stance that the English Reformation was at best a tragic mistake and at worst a hideous crime against humanity.
Some of Waterworth’s attacks on Anglicanism were so cogent and radical that they were reprinted in cheap pamphlets for wider distribution to agitate the Catholic populace. Such was the case with his “The Popes and the English Church,” originally published in the October 1870 issue of The Month and quickly reprinted by the Catholic Truth Society, a popular Ultramontane organization.54 Waterworth’s words are those of an impassioned partisan as he denies the legitimacy of the Anglican Church:
Anglicanism is, as at present constituted, hopelessly anti-Catholic. It is a sheer nationalism, and such a nationalism is destructive of one of the great marks of the Church, distinctly indicated in the Creed of the Apostles and the Creed of Nicea, namely, Catholicism—“I believe in the Holy Catholic Church”: “I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”55
The major thrust of the article begins at this point: there is only one Church, and it has always been (and still was in Waterworth’s time) under the spiritual and temporal leadership of the Pontiff, and any attempts to remove elements of the Church from the control of the Pontiff are morally bankrupt and illegitimate. No figure is safe from Waterworth’s harsh and unyielding criticism; he calls Oliver Cromwell “unprincipled.”56
Waterworth’s entire corpus of writings presents all elements of Anglicanism, including the infrastructure it confiscated during the Reformation and created afterward, as illegitimate. His writings from the 1850s are if anything even more absolutist in tone, especially regarding the veracity of other denominations and the absolute spiritual power and the necessity of the Pope. To Waterworth, any Englishman who recognized a “Protestant establishment” was flawed and a pretender because Protestant establishments were temporal and not divine—to him, the only church was the Catholic Church and, as he repeatedly stated, “all others are false.”57 Waterworth would even take historical events and place a distinctly Catholic spin on them, such as when he conflated the English love of freedom and independence with Catholicism:
The introduction of the Liturgy of Edward VI into this country, in the year 1549, was the signal of insurrection: after a lapse of more than 300 years, that Liturgy is still the fruitful source of discontent and religious and civil agitation. When it was first of all forced upon the nation, seventeen counties rose up nearly simultaneously, sword in hand, to defend their religious liberties. In the words of the first Article of the great Charter of English freedom, they declared that “the Church of England shall be free, and enjoy her rights and liberties inviolate.” These words of Magna Charta signify that Sovereigns shall not meddle with the Church; that the Pope shall direct the spiritual authorities to the exclusion of other influences; and that the appointment of Prelates shall not be interfered with by the temporal power. Catholics, jealous of the tyranny and assumptions of a bad king, extorted our glorious Charter from King John.58
Such was Fr. Waterworth, the man “esteemed by the Catholics and the Protestants.” Waterworth’s anti-Anglican view of history differs greatly from the dominant discourse espoused by pro-Anglican historians such as George Macaulay Trevelyan, who asserted that the English nation gained its essential character only through the Reformation.59 In contradistinction to the dominant Anglican ideology, Waterworth’s aggressive Catholic revision of English history—echoed today by such revisionist historians as Eamon Duffy—was the basis of the primary religious education of the young Elgar and, indeed, of all the other Catholics in Worcester.60
Indeed, Waterworth’s effects on Catholics around Elgar were profound. Elgar’s own sister, Ellen Agnes (also referred to as “Helen Agnes” and nicknamed “Dot” or “Dott”), became a Dominican nun in 1902 and eventually a prioress.61 Elgar’s schoolmate Hubert Leicester, who hailed from an old Catholic family, embraced the Catholic history of Worcester with relish, using it as an arena for Ultramontane polemical writings. In 1932, he published a short pamphlet about the history of Catholicism in Worcester, from Henry VIII’s Protestant Reformation through the penal times. A good deal of Leicester’s language in this publication mirrors the militant tone Waterworth used in his own writings. Leicester refers to “the so-called Reformation” and terms Henry VIII’s confiscation of Church lands and property “stealing.” Indeed, Leicester maps the entire history of the English Reformation as an exercise in theft, stating that those who turned away from Catholicism did so for love of money, not religion, claiming, “When the first Bills were introduced into Parliament for the establishment of an English Protestant Church, the measures were passed principally by the votes of the holders of ill-gotten wealth.”62 Like the polemics of Waterworth, there was no room for compromise within Leicester’s rhetoric—yet his writings appeared decades after the establishment of basic civil rights for Catholics in England and after his long and illustrious political career.63
While Leicester presented a wholly Ultramontane face, Elgar associated himself with the Ultramontane faction on at least two occasions, either voluntarily or because he was required to do so for professional advancement. The first instance was when he began as organist at St. George’s. In the second instance, Elgar placed an advertisement in the Catholic magazine The Tablet in 1878, advertising his services as combined secretary and music teacher. The Tablet was one of the most important organs of Ultramontane Catholic news and opinion throughout the nineteenth century.64 Elgar’s advertisement spoke diligently to that world:
To Musical Catholic Noblemen, Gentlemen, Priests, Heads of Colleges, & c., or Professors of Music—A friend of a young man, possessed of great musical talent, is anxious to obtain partial employment of him as Organist or Teacher of Piano, Organ, or Violin, to young boys, sons of gentlemen, or as Musical Amanuensis to Composers or Professors of Music, being a quick and ready copyist. Could combine Organist and Teacher of Choir, with Musical Tutor to sons of noblemen, & c. Has had several years experience as Organist. The advertiser’s object is to obtain musical employment for him, with proportionate time for study. Age 21, of quiet, studious habits, and gentlemanly bearing. Been used to good society. Would have unexceptional references. Neighbourhood of London preferred; the Continent not objected to. Disengaged in September.65
The advertisement presents Elgar as flexible in his abilities and eager to apply himself to almost anything for the sake of employment. Had it proved successful, such a position would have kept him in the insulated doctrinal world of Ultramontane Catholicism, and the advertisement shows Elgar’s willingness to live and work within that world. But young Elgar’s notice did not evince the most savvy business strategy because advertising in The Tablet meant the readers would be primarily Ultramontane Catholics—converts—and not the Old English Catholics, who might have had the money and resources to hire Elgar for such a desirable position.
Elgar found no suitable employment from his advertisement; however, St. Ge
orge’s soon gave him a modest professional position. He deputized there as organist for his father in 1872, was appointed assistant organist in 1873, and eventually became titular organist in 1885, serving until he departed for London in 1889.66 Consequently, Elgar had ample opportunity to compose Catholic music and partake in Catholic ceremonies.67 One nonliturgical devotional ceremony during these years, on October 7, 1888, inaugurated the “Apostleship of Prayer” and the blessing of a Sacred Heart statue which still exists in St. George’s today. Sacred Heart statues were icons used for extraliturgical devotions in the nineteenth century in churches or at home; The Garden of the Soul shows seven pages of prayers for this ritual.68 As the Catholic Encyclopedia, published between 1907 and 1914, noted, “Devotion to the Sacred Heart may be defined as the devotion to the adorable Heart of Jesus Christ insofar as this Heart represents and recalls His love; or what amounts to the same thing: devotion to the love of Jesus Christ insofar as this love is recalled and symbolically represented to us by his heart of flesh.”69 The importance of this event is reflected by the presence of the visiting Bishop Edward Ilsley, who officiated at the service; traditionally, bishops visited parishes for the sacraments of confirmation and ordinations, as well as installing a new priest in the parish. The Litany of the Sacred Heart, which began to appear in Catholic devotional prayer books after 1875, is a brief ritual that includes responses to prayers said by a celebrant.70 Its form is close to the “Agnus Dei” prayer, since after addressing Christ’s heart with numerous blandishments (including “Heart of Jesus, burning furnace of charity, /Heart of Jesus, abode of justice and love”) it simply asks for Christ’s mercy.71 For this ceremony, Elgar composed his last composition for St. George’s, the Ecce Sacerdos. The composition is quite concise (only fifty-three measures long) and Elgar dedicated it to Hubert Leicester.72
