ARTHUR WOLLASTON HUTTON
and the controversy about John Henry Newman's Jewish Ancestry

notes by Patrick Killough (a work in progress)



Leonard Feeney in the 20th Century drew on Canon William Barry as his source that the father of John Henry Newman was of Jewish ancestry. When challenged on this point by Newman biographer Wilfrid Ward, Canon Barry apparently said that his source was Arthur Wollaston Hutton. Hutton then told Ward that he had never categorically said that Newman was of Jewish ancestry.

There is some problem with chronology. The earliest statement I have found on "Newman the Jew" by Canon Barry dates from his 1904 NEWMAN. The Enclyclopedia Britannica article appears to date, however, seven years later -- from 1911. It is, of course possible, that Hutton published (or spoke) his opinion earlier than 1911. Barry could have heard the opinion directly from Hutton (who for years lived in Cardinal Newman's Birmingham Oratory as a Roman Catholic priest converted from the Anglican faith by Newman himself. After Newman's death Hutton returned to the Church of England.

Much remains to be resolved.

Patrick Killough
Canyon Lake, Texas
February 11, 2004
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"The author of the llth edition Britannica article was Arthur Wollaston Hutton, Rector of Bow Church Cheapside, London, formerly Librarian of the National Liberal Club and author of a Life of Cardinal Manning and the editor of the late century 6 volume edition of the Lives of the English Saints. This information is in the author notes of my edition of the llth."

[Source 1/25/2004 private email communication from a professor at Yale University. TPK]

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And here is what Hutton wrote on the subject in 1911. 
[UNDERLINING MINE.]
TPK 2/11/2004
 

http://63.1911encyclopedia.org/N/NE/NEWMAN_JOHN_HENRY.htm
 

"JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY (1801-1890), English Cardinal, was born in London on the 21st of February 1801, the eldest son of John Newman, banker, of the firm of Ramsbottom, Newman and Co. The family was understood to be of Dutch extraction, and the name itself, spelt Newmann in an earlier generation, further suggests Hebrew origin.

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Christian Classics Etherial Library
presented by Calvin College in Michigan, USA has the following fascinating glimpses into the life and changing religious allegiances of Hutton:


http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc05/htm/0439=423.htm


HUTTON, ARTHUR WOLLASTON: Church of England; b. at Spridlington (28 m. s. of Hull), Lincolnshire, Sept. 5, 1848. 

He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford (B.A., 1871), and was ordered deacon in 1871 and ordained priest in 1872. He was curate of St. Bamabas, Oxford, from 1871 to 1873, when he succeeded his father as rector of Spridlington. 

In 1876 he was received into the communion of the Roman Catholic Church by John Henry Newman. He was then a member of the Birmingham Oratory until 1883, in close association with the cardinal.
He was librarian of the National Liberal Club from its foundation in
1887 to 1899.

He returned to the Church of England in 1898, became rector of Easthope, Shropshire, in 1899, curate of St. Luke's, Richmond, in 1901, and rector of St. Mary-lo-Bow, Cheapside, London, in 1903. 

In theology he is a liberal Evangelical. His writings include: Our Position as Catholics in the Church of England (London, 1872); The Anglican Ministry (1879); Cardinal Manning (1892); Eccleaia discena (1904) ; Burford Papers (1905); The Church and the Barbarians (1906); and William Stubbs (1906). He edited S. R. Maitland's Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation in England (1899); J. H. Newman's Lives of the English Saints (2 vols., 1900); and J. Tauler's The Inner Way 1901).


(put onto Killough website 02/17/2004)


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