Brighton’s Secret Catholic Archives

The purpose of the exhibition was to display photos and memorabilia from Brighton’s Catholic history. It was arranged by St John the Baptist Church, which is situated in Kemp Town, Brighton, and is doubly famous for being the oldest remaining Catholic Church in Brighton (founded 1835) and the only church to have as benefactress Maria Fitzherbert, a woman who had been married – but invalidly - to George, the Prince of Wales, also known as ‘Prinny’ (who would later become King George IV).



Maria Fitzherbert by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1788

I thought this would be a normal exhibition – but I had reckoned without the genius of the organisers.

A normal exhibition would have been publicised widely, be opened by someone of stature (our new Bishop or the Mayor of Brighton & Hove or Canon Foley), be professionally displayed, well attended and hosted in a familiar venue.

...Not this exhibition.

It was due to open at 11am this morning and then run from 11am-6pm each day for a week until 25^th June. The venue is the Fitzherbert Centre, an empty shell of a building owned by A&B Diocese. Once the Centre was a thriving primary school - it even served as a day resource for up to 40 homeless and isolated residents; however, a devastating arson attack in 2007 and what looks like a subsequent failure of imagination or funding left the building isolated and largely empty.

Peter and I arrived at just before 11am and managed a brief ‘hello’ to the departing Canon Foley. Was this an omen? There was a certain lack of spectators...well, there were none except possibly one lady who was wandering round, inspecting the exhibits very closely. The curator, Dr Sandy Kennedy, who was hurtling around at high speed arranging things, also disappeared on an errand.   

The Exhibition Room

We waited for the opening ceremony...and waited...and waited in vain. At ten past eleven we concluded that the exhibition had indeed opened but that we had missed the precise point at which this event happened. There were several display tables, a number of boards with photographs, and two or three areas with bunches of photographs waiting to be sorted and/or exhibited.

The central table contained a display of items owned by Maria Fitzherbert, companion to the future King George IV, patron of St John the Baptist Church and inspiration for the name of the building we were in.

Maria's Things

They were mainly secular and precious items; gold shoe buckles, gold bracelet, earrings, diamond hairpin, a gold watch, an ivory fan and so on.

I'm a Fan of Maria!

There was no display poster describing the importance of her faith to her, why her last marriage was invalid and the part that her Catholicism presumably played, a description of her philanthropy or even her character...a missed opportunity. (But, to be fair, there was a newspaper clipping from 1971 which credits her with accelerating the growth of Catholicism in the town through bringing her own priest to Brighton and offering local Catholics access to Mass at her private oratory).  

By all accounts, Maria was a strong and attractive character. Although her decadent, extravagant and serially-unfaithful ‘husband’ Prinny disowned her to marry Princess Caroline of Brunswick, he seems to have been besotted by Maria to the end of his life, keeping all her letters, even – allegedly – being buried with a picture of Maria’s eye (an eye-miniature). And Maria? Well, the story is that King William IV offered her a dukedom as compensation for her shoddy treatment by Prinny but she refused on the grounds that ‘she had borne through life the name of Mrs Fitzherbert; that she had never disgraced it, and did not wish to change it.’ Quite a lady!

The First Church!

There was a picture of the very first building in Brighton used for Catholic worship – something I had never seen before...rather unprepossessing - but its appearance is irrelevant.

St Thomas More - and visitor

There was a nice, workmanlike, but limited display from St Thomas More Church; a fine display from St John the Baptist; a large and varied display by the Poor Servants of the Mother of God; photos from St Joseph’s Convent;

 

some nostalgic photos of well-attended activities from St Mary’s; a rather puzzling display on the illness of the Vicar-General of Southwark in 1898; an extended history of relevant developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; some large bibles, colourful memorial displays and a variety of other items – including press cuttings on a claimed descendant of the presumed ‘love child’ of Prinny and Maria...from the sublime to the not-so-sublime.   

SVP Relief Books

As expected, the Saint Vincent de Paul (SVP) display was well set out and informative. I’m naturally biased, I contributed three Relief Books from Sacred Heart Church’s SVP group; these detail the weekly assistance given to needy people in the parish, the oldest book on display dates from 1916. The SVP Conference at Sacred Heart is the oldest in Brighton & Hove, being registered in 1907.

No, I don't know what it is!

Initially, I was puzzled at the lack of publicity, material, organisation and visitors to the display but it then struck me that this was a clever imitation of the Vatican’s famous Secret Archives - not publicised or easy to access, restricted to devout and dedicated enquirers, not all on display and parts open to interpretation.

I’m sure there is a great story waiting to be told about the history of Catholicism in Brighton & Hove but it will take time  - and funding – to conduct and assemble research, gather all the relevant artefacts, interpret them and document and display them in a way that does them justice.

And, perhaps by then the Fitzherbert Centre will be a Catholic Social Community Centre offering support to the elderly, isolated, homeless and the plain needy?