Rev John Coventry

  General Notes:

From James Coventry, Gentleman Photographer by Anthony Light and Gerald Ponting (http://home.clara.net/gponting/index-page8.html):

after their marriage John and Catherine moved to Cornwall so that John could pursue his chosen career in the church. Following family tradition he had obtained his qualifications at Oxford having been admitted to Magdalen on 12^th Oct 1838 aged 19. He was awarded his BA degree in 1842, the year of his marriage.

The following year John and Catherine's first child, Margaret Elizabeth, was born at Fowey where John was curate. However his determination to complete his education saw the family move back to Oxford, this time to the nearby village of Iffley. He was again admitted to Magdalen where he gained his MA degree in 1845.

Back in Cornwall, John had a short stint as rector of Tywardreath near St Austell. On 9^th Mar 1852 he was appointed as Assistant Curate of St Michael's, Ottery St Mary with an annual stipend of £40.
Increasingly John was influenced by the Oxford Movement within the Church of England, known to it's supporters as the Catholic revival. John Henry Newman, one of the leaders of the movement, converted to Catholicism in 1845. His defection was widely publicised and many other Church of England clergyman reconsidered their positions as a result.

John, with his wife and nine children, was received into the Catholic Church in 1857. His father, a staunch protestant, was outraged. Ostracised by family and friends, John and Catherine decided to move abroad, settling at Vouvray, near Tours in France. Here, with a like minded community of English colleagues and under the influence of the Servite Fathers, they were able to practice Catholicism free of the prejudices prevalent in England.

Having given up the income from his church living and with no support from his father, John was now almost entirely dependant on his wife's family fortune. Life was hard and the material advantages normally resulting from their position in society were largely lacking. Three more children were born to them here between 1859 and 1863.

He undertook the education of his children and Catholicism dominated their lives; the intensity of their convictions is exemplified by one son, James, who became a Pontifical Zoave, another, Alexander, joined the priesthood and three daughters became nuns.

A Papal Zouave

The family's departure from France, at the time of the Franco-Prussian war, was a dramatic one. The following story was told by John's sister, Gertrude, who was nine years old at the time of the event:

"The invading Prussian armies gained the upper hand on the armies of Napoleon III's Second Empire and inflicted a crushing defeat at the battle of Sedan on 1^st Sep 1870. On that same day, some of the Coventry children had had a bonfire in their garden at la Valliniere. Local people wrote 'mort aux Anglais' on their gates, assuming that the English family was celebrating the Prussian victory. The family departed in haste and secrecy during the night, leaving most of their belongings behind and passed through Paris the day before it was sieged. They then lived on the outskirts of London for a spell before moving to Bournemouth."

At Bournemouth the family joined with others in promoting the construction of a new Catholic church but their stay there was curtailed by the serious illness of John's father at Burgate House. The earlier bitterness over his son's conversion remained and, even though dying, John snr refused to allow his son and heir to see him. It is said that, had it been legally possible, he would certainly have withheld his inheritance. Being bound by the terms of his father's will, however, he could do nothing to alter the descent of either Burgate House or the estates.

His personal effects were a different matter. The contents of the house were left almost in their entirety to his wife Wyndham (Ellen Penruddock, his third wife), while £6000 was set aside for the benefit of his remaining children, John jnr was mentioned only once in his will. Four silver side bowls with the Coventry crest were to be held in trust by Wyndham, for the use of John during his lifetime.

Wyndham had no use for the furniture and other effects so decided to have a sale, conducted by Hannen's, the local auctioneers. It lasted for three days and included every single item remaining both from within the house and from the gardens, yards and stables. John jnr, who would otherwise have been left with an empty house, was forced to buy back much of the furniture and effects at considerable personal cost.

Burgate House now became a hive of activity as John, his wife and their twelve children, ranging in age from eight to twenty eight, settled in. Several of them were destined to stay there for many years, although others gradually moved away to begin the next stage of their lives. Walter joined the Public Works Department in Cape Town, Alexander Moray joined the Servite Order as their first English novice and Bernard was appointed as agricultural advisor to the Indian Government. Marion, Isabella and Barbara became nuns. Surprisingly only four of their twelve children married.

Emily & Gertrude Coventry

The promotion of Catholicism was still John's overriding priority. One of his first acts as the new owner of Burgate was to plan a private Oratory with a priest to say masses, something that would have horrified his father! It was also John's dream to establish a Catholic community in Fordingbridge. To this end he gave the Servite Fathers, all Italians, a sum of £1000 and two acres of land from his estate together with a endowment of £100 per annum. The intention was to build a small monastic house and church. Work began in 1872 on the old cricket pitch, just to the north of the town, at Calves Close.

The late Muriel Coventry, in her notes on local Catholicism, revealed that problems soon arose:

"Unfortunately instead of John seeing the project through himself through his architect it was left to the Fathers - all Italians with large ideas with what they could do with the money. The present church was intended to be a refectory and at that stage building had to stop".

Fordingbridge Church, as it stands today, is what was intended to be a refectory with a dormitory above; the intervening floor was removed when it was discovered that insufficient funds remained to build a church as well.

Fordingbridge Catholic Church

Once the adapted church was open for worship by local Catholics there was further controversy. John's endowment to the Servites had made additional provision for the resident priest to 'say two Masses per week in the private Oratory of Mr Coventry'. According to the regulations of the Catholic Church, John was the 'primary indult' in this arrangement - he was the person allowed a specific deviation from the Church's common law. The rules did not allow Masses to be said for the family when John was absent. As a result:

"Mr Coventry, without taking notice of the church laws, refused to pay the donations and implicitly threatened a law suit in a secular court if they would not say Mass in his Oratory even in his absence. So the Holy See…benignly granted to extend the privilege of primary indult to three other individuals of his family. But not even with this did he declare himself content…"

No doubt due to this dispute, the Servite Fathers left Fordingbridge in 1875 and did not return until 1888. In the meantime there was a succession of priests presumably amenable to his demands.

His death in Nov 1897 precipitated a major crisis in the family; his trustees, appointed a few years earlier, were charged with selling the entire estate after his decease. This was necessary to pay off mortgages and other charges, which were a considerable and constant drain on the estate. These charges included annual payments from the sum of £6000 set aside by his father in 1871.

As a result, the centuries old possessions of the manor of Burgate were dispersed irrevocably. The bulk of the sale - 1680 acres of land with numerous houses and cottages valued at a total annual rental income of nearly £3000 - took place in 1898. Some of the land was purchased by developers, resulting in the building of streets of Victorian villas to the north of Fordingbridge Catholic Church. The remainder of the outlying properties were sold in the following year.

A more serious matter to the family was the potential loss of Burgate House itself. This too had to be auctioned. Much to his relief John, his son and heir, was able to buy back both the house and the adjoining Park at the sale held at the White Hart in Salisbury on 8th August.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Occupation/Address: Clergyman without care of souls, 1851, West Dean, Sussex. ²¹

• Occupation/Address: Funded Property, 1871, 25 Finborough Road, Kensington, SW7.

• Occupation/Address: Living on his own means, 1891, Burgate House, Fordingbridge, Hampshire.

John married Catherine Seton, daughter of Lt Col James Seton and Margaret Findlater, on 21 Jun 1842 in Fordingbridge, Hampshire. (Catherine Seton was born on 23 May 1818 in Ibsley, Hampshire ¹⁵ and died on 19 Feb 1901 in Fordingbridge, Hampshire ⁷.)