Newman’s life and times

A chronology of events in the life of Cardinal John Henry Newman

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YearAgeEvent
1801Cardinal Newman born February 21

Literary Context
1801 – Tennyson b.

Historical Context
1801 – Suppression of Irish Parliament; Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland
1803 – Napoleonic Wars begin
18087Goes to Ealing School

Literary Context
1814 – Wordsworth:The Excursion; Bryon: The Corsair; Scott: Waverley
1815 – Coleridge: Kubla Khan published

Historial Context
1815 – Battle of Waterloo; Corn Law; Congress of Vienna restores Papal States
181615Converted to Evangelical Christianity
181716Becomes an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford

Literary Context
1818 – Byron: Don Juan
182019Achieves a B.A. Degree

Literary Context
1820 – Scott: Ivanhoe; Keats: Ode to a Nightingale
1821 – Keats d.: James Mill: Elements of Political Economy

Historical Context
1820 – Accession of George IV; Cato St conspiracy
182221Elected to the Oriel fellowship

Literary Context
1822 – Shelley d.
182524Becomes vice-principal of Alban Hall; takes Holy Orders
182625Becomes tutor at Oriel

Literary Context
1827 – Keble: The Christian Year; William Blake d.
182827Meets Hurrell Froude; becomes Vicar of St Mary’s

Historical Context
1829 – Catholic Emancipation
183029Newman and Froude deprived of Oriel tutorships

Literary Context
1830 – Hazlitt d.; Cobbett: Rural Rides

Historical Context
1830 – July Revolution; Accession of William IV
183231Tour of Southern Europe

Literary Context
1833 – Walter Scott d.

Historical Context
1832 – Reform Act
183332Returns to England; Arians of the Fourth Century; Tracts for the Times begins

Literary Context
1833 – Carlyle: Sartor Resartus

Historical Context
1833 – Keble Assize sermon; Factory Act
183433Parochial and Plain sermons (1834-42)

Historical Context
1834 – New Poor Law; Parliament burns down
183736Prophetical Office of the Church

Literary Context
1837 – Hurrell Froude: Literary Remains

Historical Context
1837 – Accession of Queen Victoria
183837Appointed editor of The British Critic; Lectures on Justification

Literary Context
1839 – Darwin: Voyage of the Beagle

Historical Context
1838 – Rise of Chartism
1839 – Bedchamber plot; Birmingham riots; Penny postage Act
184140Tract xc; condemned by University authorities

Historical Context
1841 – Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister
184241Newman withdraws to Littlemore

Historical Context
1842 – Chartist riots; Lord Ashley’s Act protecting women and children in mines
184342Retracts anti-Roman statements; resigns from St Mary’s; Oxford University Sermons

Literary Context
1843 – Carlyle: Past and Present; J.S. Mill: System of Logic
1844 – Disraeli: Coningsby
184544Received into the Catholic Church; Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

Historical Context
1845 – Maynooth grant
184645Leaves Oxford

Literary Context
1846 – Edward Lear: Book of Nonsense

Historical Context
1846 – Repeal of Corn Laws, Election of Pius IX
184746Created D.D. and Ordained Priest, in Rome

Literary Context
1847 – Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre, Thackeray: Vanity Fair; Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights
184847Founds Birmingham Oratory; Loss and Gain

Literary Context
1848 – Dickens: Dombey and Son; Kingsley: Yeast; Mrs Gaskell: Mary Barton

Historical Context
1848 – Gorham judgement; European revolutions
185049Difficulties of Anglicans 1851 50 Present Position of Catholics; Rector of Catholic University of Ireland

Literary Context
1850 – Dickens: David Copperfield; Tennyson: In Memoriam
1851 – Ruskin: Stones of Venice

Historical Context
1850 – Restoration of Catholic Hierarchy in England causes anti-Catholic sentiment
1851 – Ecclesiastical titles Act forbidding Catholic use of names of existing dioceses
185251First Part of Idea of a University

Newman spends some weeks recuperating at Abbotsford, Robert Hope-Scott’s home in the Scottish Borders
185352Unjustly found guilty of libelling Giacinto Achilli

Literary Context
1853 – Matthew Arnold: The Scholar Gipsy
1854 – Dickens: Hard Times
1855 – Trollope: The Warden

Historical Context
1853 – Crimean War begins (ends ’56)
1855 – Daily Telegraph founded
185655Calista
185756Invited by Wiseman to undertake new Bible translation

Literary Context
1857 – George Eliot: Scenes of clerical life

Historical Context
1857 – Indian Mutiny
185857Translation project fails for lack of support. Final return from Ireland

Historical Context
1858 – India transferred to Crown; Jews admitted to Parliament
185958‘Consulting the faithful on matters of doctrine’; accusations of unorthodoxy

Literary Context
1859 – Darwin: Origin of species; J.S.Mill: On Liberty
1860 – Wilkie Collins: Woman in White; Dickens: Great Expectations; Ruskin: Unto this last Essays and Reviews
1863 – Kingsley: Water Babies

Historical Context
1860 – Unification of Italy; loss of most Papal States; discovery of the source of the Nile
186463Apologia pro Vita Sua

Literary Context
1864 – Tolstoi: War and Peace; Trollope: Small House at Allington

Historical Context
1864 – Pius IX: Syllabus of Errors
186564Dreams of Gerontius

Literary Context
1864 – Tolstoi: War and Peace; Trollope: Small House at Allington
1865 – Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland; Rudyard Kipling b.; W.B. Yeats b.
1866 – Kingsley: Hereward the Wake; Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment
1867 – Marx: Das Kapital, Vol 1
1869 – Matthew Arnold: Culture and Anarchy; J.S. Mill: On the Subjection of Women

Historical Context
1864 – Pius IX: Syllabus of Errors
1865 – Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
1866 – Treaty of Vienna; invention of Dynamite
1867 – Marx: Das Kapital, Vol 1
1869 – Foundation of Girton College, Cambridge; Abolition of debtors prisons
187069Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent

Literary Context
1870 – Death of Charles Dickens; Disraeli: Lothair
1874 – G.K. Chesteron b.

Historical Context
1870 – Vatican Council, Pius IX ‘Prisoner of the Vatican’, Franco-Prussian War
187271Summer 1872: Newman at Abbotsford, his influence leading to many conversions and the construction of new churches
187574Letter to the Duke of Norfolk

Literary Context
1875 – Kingsley d.

Historical Context
1875 – Purchase of Suez Canal
187776Age 76 – Elected to honorary fellowship of Trinity College, Oxford

Literary Context
1877 – Henry James: The American
1878 – Thomas Hardy: The Return of the Native

Historical Context
1878 – Election of Leo XIII
187978Age 78 – Receives Cardinal’s Hat from Pope Leo XIII

Literary Context
1879 – Ibsen: A Doll’s House
1880 – George Eliot d.; Lytton Strachey b.
1881 – Thomas Carlyle d.

Historical Context
1879 – Trotsky and Stalin b.; British Zulu War
189089Dies in Birmingham, August 11

Literary Context
1890 – Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Historical Context
1890 – Charles De Gaulle b.; First Electric power station; Forth Bridge opened