John Henry Newman, Local Hero
A chocolate-adjacent essay on neighborliness
In celebration of the delights of leftover Easter chocolates, historian Christopher Lane (yep, my better half) and Hearth & Field have given me permission to post an excerpt from this week’s excellent essay on John Henry Newman and the virtues of neighborliness and local living.
But what does Newman have to do with candy, and what could this cosmopolitan clergyman possibly know about being a good neighbor?
Read on to find out. (Preferably while eating some candy yourself, whether Easter or otherwise!)
John Henry Newman, Local Hero
By Dr. Christopher John Lane
As your teeth pass through the chocolate shell and reach the gooey “yolk” of a Cadbury Creme Egg on any given Easter, realize that you have John Henry Newman to thank for your confectionary celebration of the Resurrection. Sort of.
Like the two other founding families among the “big three” Victorian-era British confectioners, the Cadburys were Quakers. These religious and philanthropic industrialists sought to combine profit-making with love for the workers at their factory south of Birmingham, England. In 1889, however, their beneficent intentions had sparked a labor dispute that required Cardinal Newman, the founder of the local Oratorian community of priests, to mediate. A group of young female Catholic workers had refused to attend the factory’s daily morning Bible commentary and prayer service, the details of which clashed with Catholic teaching. The eighty-eight-year-old Cardinal Newman was driven out to confer with Richard and George Cadbury, who hoped that the scholarly, irenic shepherd of souls would convince the girls to participate. He instead supported the girls’ position and that of their parish priest, emphasizing the place of conscience, a principle cherished by both the Cardinal and the two Quakers. The brothers reported being “charmed by the loving Christian spirit with which he entered into the question.” On the way home, Cardinal Newman remarked, “If I can but do work such as that, I am happy and content to live on.” The Cadburys ultimately set aside a space for Catholic prayer during the time of the morning service.
The Cadburys of Cardinal Newman’s day were already pioneers in chocolate Easter eggs, and filled eggs would join the family repertoire in the 1920s. Perhaps the affair of the “Cadbury girls” was of small consequence in the history of the firm. It might have been amicably resolved without Newman, and the company might have gone on to give us modern-day Creme Eggs, regardless. Still, it matters that it was resolved in this way, through a friendly conversation among mutually respected neighbors who shared some core convictions while also diverging on fundamental life questions. It was certainly a large event in the lives of the young women who had staked their livelihoods on their consciences. And this witness of mutual charity was one more step in the journey of the remarkable Cadbury family, whose frequent contemplation was the query, “And who is my neighbor?”
For the Cadburys, answering that question required setting down roots, working good for particular people in a particular place, without sacrificing a wider vision. The brothers went on to build, alongside their factory, the model village of Bournville, which offered to workers healthful Arts and Crafts houses, sports fields, a large children’s playground, a swimming pool, schools, and shops, not to mention old-age pensions. Richard and George were known to call off the work day early for a cricket match or a country walk with their employees. The family focused its further philanthropy on the needs of their ever-expanding industrial city, building schools, hospitals, and parks while serving as leading members of the Birmingham Civic Society.
Cardinal Newman likewise embraced a rooted life, serving particular people in the particular industrial city of Birmingham. Moreover, an ethos of the local and real, over against the centralized and abstract, was a conscious theme of his writing.
John Henry Newman’s resume would seem to give him high cosmopolitan credentials: Born in London. Student of Trinity College, Oxford and then Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Lengthy Mediterranean trip at the age of thirty-one. A year-and-a-half in Rome for formation as a Catholic priest. Founding rector of the Catholic University of Ireland. Eventually a Cardinal of the Church of Rome. Editor of periodicals of national note. Author of dozens of volumes of published works. Dukes and a prime minister in his wider circle of friends. Correspondence reaching about 21,000 epistles.
Yet deep local loyalties began to become evident in Newman’s Oxford years of 1816 to 1846. He expressed his ideal, for instance, in his 1827 poem “Snapdragon,” which opens…
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Uplifting....
I'm printing this out to give to my eldest for his history today (he loves Saint stories and this one is particularly applicable to the challenges of our family life)
Thanks for sharing!