Peter Costello
Newman’s Oxford: The places and buildings associated with Saint John Henry Newman during his years in Oxford 1816-1846
by Fr Jerome Bertram FSA
(Gracewing, £6.99)
The canononisation of John Henry Newman will open the way to many more popular accounts of parts of his life. In this very appealing brochure Fr Jerome Bertram, a priest of the Oratory as well as an antiquarian, provides an attractive guide to all the places associated with the Saint in Oxford between 1816 and 1846.
It is filled with extracts from letters, papers, and memoires, which give a very human, yet detailed impression of his life. It is well illustrated with engravings and paintings from the same late-Georgian period.
Simply said, Oxford was one of Newman’s great loves – naturally not his greatest love. It epitomised for him both as an Anglican and a Catholic medieval and intellectual and literary values which were vitally important to him.
It has also to be said, in an Irish context, that this devotion to Oxford was one of the factors that caused the breakdown of his ambitions for a university in Dublin. In his lectures and in his practical work he aimed at an institution akin to Oxford.
The Irish hierarchy did not want that at all, that would be too British, perhaps even too secular, to akin to the supposedly ‘Godless’ Queen’s Colleges. They had in mind a university more akin to Louvain which was more familiar to them and of which some had personal knowledge.
In any case the college in Dublin, would like those in Oxford, not provide a universal education but a select, even elite one, largely indeed for clergy.
Any devotee of John Henry Newman will gain much from reading this little book, as the author has room in dealing with such a limited topic room for material that could not find a place in a fuller autobiography.
Anyone planning to follow Newsman’s steps in Oxford should have this book in hand. They will then be able to experience a place that goes to the heart of who Newman was, and indeed, still is.