Becoming a Roman Catholic in elite and educated British circles was not for the faint of heart in the first half of the 19th century. St. John Henry Newman, soon to be proclaimed our newest Doctor of the Church, understood well that he would pay a hefty price upon his conversion in 1845, as he had already lost powerful friends in the preceding years after publishing his famous “Tract 90” as a leader of the Oxford Movement.
Entering the Church of Rome brought unfavorable press attention to Newman. He was described as a troublesome defector from the Church of England in newspapers across the British Isles.
Conversion also automatically disqualified Newman from holding most university posts in England, which is why he resigned his position as a fellow of Oxford’s Oriel College just six days before receiving Communion as a Catholic for the first time. It would be many years—not until Parliament passed the Universities Test Act in 1871—before Catholics were permitted, by law, to enroll as students in all of the universities throughout the British Isles, let alone to teach in them.
Newman drew courage, though, from the example of many other British people who had made the decision to convert before he did. Indeed, it is not widely appreciated—even by some already familiar with Newman’s story—that a number of Anglican clergymen and university students entered the Church prior to his 1845 conversion. Many of them were influenced by the Oxford Movement and by Newman himself, despite his own continued hesitation to swim the Tiber, so to speak. In some cases, and as Newman would be after them, they were publicly accused of being “perverts” by Establishment journalists who deemed the term “converts” as too legitimating of their shocking decision.
It is even less well known that various British women of education and status left the Church of England for the Roman one before Newman did.