Thomas Edward Bridgett

Thomas Edward Bridgett (20 January 1829 – 17 February 1899) was an English Catholic priest, missionary preacher and historical writer.

Life

He was the third son of Joseph Bridgett, a silk manufacturer of Colney Hatch, and his wife Mary (born Gregson). He was born at Derby on 20 January 1829. His parents were Baptists, and Bridgett was educated first at Mill Hill School and then at Nottingham; but in 1848 he was admitted to Tunbridge School, and on 20 March 1845 was baptised into the Church of England. He was in the sixth form at Tunbridge from 1845 to 1847, proceeding thence as Smythe exhibitioner to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted pensioner on 23 February 1847. He intended taking orders in the Anglican church, but in 1850 he refused to take the oath of supremacy necessary before graduation, and was received into the Roman Catholic Church by Father Stanton at the Brompton Oratory. He joined the Redemptorist Order, completing his novitiate at Saint-Trond in Belgium, and after a course of five years of theological study at Wittem, in The Netherlands; in 1856 he was ordained priest and returned to England. Mission work is the chief function of the order, and as a missionary Bridgett was very successful. In 1868, he founded the Confraternity of the Holy Family attached to the Redemptorist church at Limerick.

Bridgett, however, found time for a good deal of literary and historical work, and produced several books of value, dealing mainly with the history of the Reformation. His earliest work was The Ritual of the New Testament, 1873, 8vo. In, he published Our Lady's Dowry, which reached a third edition in 1890. His most extensive work was his History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain, 1881, 2 vols. 8vo. In 1888, he published a Life of Blessed John Fisher (2nd edit. 1890); in 1889 The True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth, and in 1891 The Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More. He also edited the Sermons (1876) of Bishop Thomas Watson (1513–1584); Lyra Hieratica. Poems on the Priesthood, 1896; and wrote The Discipline of Drink; an historical inquiry into the principles and practice of the Catholic Church regarding the use, abuse, and disuse of alcoholic liquors, 1876, Historical Notes on Adare, Dublin, 1885, 8vo, and Sonnets and Epigrams on Sacred Subjects, London, 1898, 8vo.

He died of cancer at the monastery of St. Mary's, Clapham, on 17 February 1899, and was buried on the 21st in the churchyard at St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake.

His youngest brother, Ronald, for many years consul at Buenos Ayres, died 16 February 1899.

Source discussion

Attribution:

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Thomas Edward Bridgett — Priest and author, b at Derby, England, 20 January, 1829, of Protestant parents; d. at St. Mary's Clapham, 17 February, 1899. His father was a silk manufacturer, and sent his son first to Mill Hill, a Congregationalist College near London, then to Tonbridge, a Church of England public school, where he was baptized at the age of sixteen, and finally, in October, 1847, to St John's College, Cambridge, the home of Blessed John Fisher whose life Father Bridgett afterwards wrote. In 1850, while an undergraduate, he left the university being unable to accept the oath of Royal Supremacy which was then required before taking a degree. Shortly afterwards, having attended Dr. Newman's lectures on "Anglican Difficulties" at the London Oratory, he was received into the Catholic Church by the Oratorian, Father Stanton, 12 June, 1850, and on 15 October of the next year made his religious profession in the Redemptorist novitiate of St. Trond, Belgium. He pursued his theological studies at Wittem in Holland and was ordained priest in August, 1856. After being five years minister and consultor to the vice-provincial in Clapham, the London house of his Congregation, he went to Limerick for nine years, where as rector he founded, in 1868, the celebrated Confraternity of the Holy Family for men. This soon consisted of over 5,000 active members, the largest association of its kind in any one locality, in the Church. In 1871, he returned to Clapham as rector, where he spent the greater part of his remaining years.

Father Bridgett was a missionary like all the members of his Congregation, but with advancing years he devoted himself to giving retreats, particularly to the clergy. It was not till 1867 that he turned his thoughts to writing a sermon on ritual developing into his first book, "In Spirit and in Truth". This work was called in later editions "The Ritual of the New Testament". It was followed in 1875 by "Our Lady's Dowry", showing by many illustrations from history and literature the devotion of medieval England to the Mother of God. In this and in "The History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain", a work on the same plan published in l881, the author shows a learning which is truly encyclopedic. The "Life of Blessed John Fisher", which led to a correspondence with Mr. Gladstone, followed in 1888; "The True Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth", a work written in conjunction with Father Knox of the Oratory, came out in 1889; "Blunders and Forgeries", a very fine piece of cross-examination, in 1890; and the "Life of Blessed Thomas More", his most popular work, in 1891. Father Bridgett also published devotional verse of considerable merit, both in a collection which he edited called "Lyre Hieratica", and in "Sonnets and Epigrams", an entirely original work. He died after a long and painful illness and was buried in the Catholic cemetery at Mortlake, near London.

RYDER, Life of Thomas Edward Bridgett (London, 1906); The Messenger (New York, June, 1907); The Tablet, files (London, Feb. 1899).