Charles Petre Eyre (1817–1902) was a

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clergyman who was appointed the first Roman Catholic archbishop of Glasgow since the Scottish Reformation. He served as archbishop from 1878 to 1902.

Family

Born at Askham Bryan Hall,

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, near

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, England, on 7 November 1817, he was the fifth of nine children of John Lewis Eyre (died 1880) and Sara Eyre, née Parker (died 1825). His father later became a director at the London and South Western Railway. His family was the recusant Eyre family of

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, a family which had retained their Roman Catholic beliefs since the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

and suffered land loss as a result.

Education and early ministry

On 28 March 1826, Charles was received into St Cuthbert's College, near Durham. He received the

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and the four minor orders ( acolyte, exorcist, lector and porter) from

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on 17 December 1839 and he was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform ...

a subdeacon by the bishop on 25 May 1839. In December 1839, he entered the Venerable English College, Rome, and was

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

there on 19 March 1842. He returned to England and was appointed an assistant priest at St Andrew's Catholic Church, Newcastle in 1843, before being transferred to St Mary's Church, Newcastle in 1844; becoming the senior priest there in 1847. Afterwards, he took positions at Wooler, Illness and Haggerstone between 1849 and 1856, before returning to Newcastle. He was for many years a canon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle; and for some time was vicar-general of the diocese.

Episcopal career

Although previously considered for other bishoprics, it was not until 29 November 1868 that he was officially nominated for a prelacy. He was appointed Titular Archbishop of ''

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'' and

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for Scotland on 3 December 1868. He was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different gro ...

at the church of

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on 31 January 1869. The principal consecrator was Cardinal

Karl-August von Reisach Karl-August Graf von Reisach (7 July 1800, in Roth, Bavaria22 December 1869, in the Redemptorist monastery of Contamine, France) was a German Catholic theologian and Cardinal. Education On the completion of his secular studies in Neuburg an de ...

, Archbishop Emeritus of Munich and Freising, and the principal co-consecrators were Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster and Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode, Titular Archbishop of Melitene. Following the resignation of Bishop John Gray on 4 March 1869, Archbishop Eyre was appointed the

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of the Western District of Scotland on 16 April 1869. He travelled to

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in March 1869, charged with organising the re-establishment of Roman Catholic hierarchy in Scotland. After attending the

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(1869–70), he returned to Scotland in a mission to build schools and to unite the Scottish catholic community, bitterly divided between Scottish and Irish Catholics. In 1874, he opened St Peter's Seminary at Bearsden (subsequently removed to Cardross under the same name). Despite some resistance among Scottish Catholics, the Scottish hierarchy was restored by

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on 15 March 1878. The Western District was divided into the Archdiocese of Glasgow, the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles and the Diocese of Galloway; with Charles Petre Eyre appointed as the first Roman Catholic archbishop of Glasgow since the

Scottish Reformation The Scottish Reformation was the process by which Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland broke with the Pope, Papacy and developed a predominantly Calvinist national Church of Scotland, Kirk (church), which was strongly Presbyterianism, Presbyterian in ...

. Six years later he established a

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. Archbishop Eyre was successful to a large extent in integrating the new establishment into Scottish society. The

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

awarded him an Honorary

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in 1892. He was one of the early patrons of

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, founded in 1888 with a name designed to inspire unity between Scottish and Irish Catholics in the Glasgow area. He died at his home in Glasgow on 27 March 1902, aged 84. He was buried in his seminary at Bearsden; now the site of the new Bearsden Academy building. His body was later moved to St Andrew's Cathedral, Glasgow. Archbishop Eyre left a number of religious and historical works, including works on Scottish saints, the medieval church of Glasgow, and

St Cuthbert Cuthbert of Lindisfarne ( – 20 March 687) was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Nor ...

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Eyre, Charles Petre 1817 births 1902 deaths 19th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Scotland English College, Rome alumni Roman Catholic archbishops of Glasgow Clergy from York Alumni of Ushaw College