The fifteenth York Catholic History Day will be held at the Bar Convent on Saturday 5th June. Last year, the programme included topics both local and international. The day began with a talk by Sr Patricia Harriss CJ on Mary Ward through her writings. It was most appropriate that the History Day included this talk in the year when the Bar Convent Community and the rest of the Congregation of Jesus were celebrating the life and achievements of their founder. Fr Nicholas Hird, who has compiled a biographical dictionary of the Leeds clergy, then spoke about Fathers of Faith: insights into the founding clergy of the Diocese of Leeds. Dr Simon Ditchfield of the University of York gave the final lecture, entitled A Catholic Reformation for the twenty first century: the making of Roman Catholicism as a world religion 1500 to 1700.

This year, Alexander Lock, a PhD student at Leeds University, who is researching the Gasgoigne family, of Lotherton Hall, near Leeds, and other places, will speak on ‘The qualifications as adorn a gentleman and a Christian‘: the education and upbringing of Sir Thomas Gasgoigne of Parlington Hall.

Peter Hills is researching the Widdrington family and will speak on The Widdringtons: a Northumbrian recusant family and the Fifteen Jacobite Rising. Lord William Widdrington (1678 to 1743) and his brothers Charles and Peregrine, who took up arms in the Jacobite cause in 1715, were connected to other recusant families in the North, including Yorkshire. Their mother was a Fairfax and William was born at Gilling Castle. He was buried at Nunnington in the family vault of his second wife, Catherine Graham.

The third speaker, Dr John T Smith of Hull University, will speak on ‘The priest and the teacher in the Victorian Era‘. His book, ‘A Victorian class conflict? Schoolteaching and the parson, priest and minister, 1837 – 1902’ was published in 2009.

The History Days are sponsored by the Postgate Society, the Catholic Record Society and the English Catholic History Association and attract an audience whose interests include Catholic, local, national and family history. The programme on the 5th June begins at 10.30 am, with coffee from 10am, and closes with the vigil Mass in the Bar Convent chapel at 5pm. The cost is £13.50, students £6.00, including tea and coffee in the morning and afternoon. Further information is available from Judith Smeaton, tel (01904) 704525, e-mail judith.smeaton@btinternet.com