Correspondence and documents, 1841-1848

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172 items

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The bulk of the letters on this reel relate directly to Australia and New Zealand and are listed below. Other letters may refer incidentally to Archbishop Polding or Australian matters, but are mostly concerned with the Catholic Church in England and the affairs of Benedictine houses. The correspondents include Cardinal Charles Acton, Bernard Barber, president-general of the Benedictine congregation in England (1842-1850), Peter Wilson, prior of Downside Priory (1840-1854), Bishop Joseph Brown, vicar apostolic of the Welsh District (1840-50) and Father Bernard Ullathorne, who was stationed at Coventry until 1846, when he became a bishop and vicar apostolic of the Western District.

The letters from Australia were nearly all written to Father Thomas Heptonstall, who was the agent of most of the Benedictine priests in Australia. The principal correspondent was John Bede Polding, who was made Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of Australia in 1842 and who held the offices until his death in 1877. Other correspondents include Robert Willson, bishop of Hobart (1842-1866), Francis Murphy, bishop of Adelaide (1844-1858) and Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, vicar apostolic of Western Oceania (1836-1848).

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