Joseph Stevenson (27 November 1806 – 8 February 1895) was an English
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
and later
Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
priest,
archivist and editor of historical texts.
Early life
Joseph Stevenson was born on 27 November 1806 in
Berwick-on-Tweed, the eldest son of Robert Stevenson, surgeon, and his wife, Elizabeth Wilson.
His parents were
Presbyterians. Growing up, he occasionally accompanied an uncle on
smuggling expeditions across the border.
He was educated first at
Witton-le-Wear (
County Durham
County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...
), and then at
Durham School
Durham School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging boarding and day school in the English Public school (UK), public school tradition located in Durham, England, Durham, North East England. Since 2021 it has been part of th ...
, under
James Raine; where he was usually near the bottom of his class and at one time kept a loaded pistol among his effects which went off in the hands of a servant with dramatic although not deadly consequences.
Afterwards he studied Latin and Greek at the
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...
but made little progress and eventually returned to Berwick to pursue a vocation with the
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While mem ...
.
Career
Moving to London, Stevenson found work in 1831 at the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
, which had just acquired the
Arundel collection and needed competent assistants to sort and classify.
He briefly went to Glasgow to claim a bride, Mary Ann, daughter of John Craig of
Mount Florida, whom he married that September. A son, Robert, was born in August 1832; two daughters came later.
From this time Stevenson established contact with many notable British historians including
Patrick Fraser Tytler, and joined various
learned societies
A learned society ( ; also scholarly, intellectual, or academic society) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences. Membership may be open to al ...
. In 1834 he was appointed a subcommissioner of the public records and began work on a proposed new edition of
Thomas Rymer's ''Foedera''.
While in London he transferred his allegiance from the kirk to the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
, in which Robert and the two daughters were baptized.
Return to Durham
The death of his son Robert in 1839 prompted him to reconsider his life. He resigned from the record commission and went to Durham to enter the
city's university and study Theology, completing his
licentiate in Easter 1841, with one of his classmates being the future antiquarian
George Ornsby.
He became librarian at
Durham Cathedral
Durham Cathedral, formally the , is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Durham, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Durham and is the Mother Church#Cathedral, mother church of the diocese of Durham. It also contains the ...
. He spent the next seven years cataloging the charters and deeds in the treasury.
During this time he was close to the cleric and author
George Townsend, who would later travel to
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
on an unsuccessful mission to convert
Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...
to
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
.
Townsend appointed Stevenson as curate at
St Margaret's Church.
All this time he was constantly editing ancient texts: for the
Maitland Club, Glasgow, eight volumes (1833–42) (including ''The Life and Death of King James the First of Scotland'' (1837), which contains the text of ''
The Dethe of the Kynge of Scotis''
); for the English Historical Society, five volumes (1838–41); for the
Roxburghe Club, four volumes; for the
Surtees Society, seven volumes, with eight volumes of ''The Church Historians of England''.
Archivist to the British Government
In 1849 he became Vicar of
Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, where he would remain until 1862.
By contrast with his comfortable Durham living, here he had to manage on £120 per annum, and to live in a
vicarage
A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or Minister (Christianity), ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of n ...
so decayed as to be uninhabitable. He stayed until 1862, somehow finding the money to fund a curate, rebuild the vicarage, and restore the church after it was struck by lightning.
1856 the British Government was making plans for dealing with the national records on a large scale. Stevenson was one of those appointed to report on the subject, and when the new
Public Record Office
The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...
was opened in 1857, he was one of the first editors engaged. He now edited seven volumes for the
Rolls Series, seven volumes of ''Calendars, Foreign Series'', and two of the ''Scottish Series''. Ironically, given his later conversion to the Catholic faith, one of his predecessors at the Office,
William Barclay Turnbull
William Barclay David Donald Turnbull (1811–1863) was a Scottish antiquary and archivist.
Life
Born in Edinburgh, Turnbull studied law, and was admitted as an advocate at the Scottish bar 1832, but devoted much time to the study of the anti ...
, had been pressured to resign because of his own Catholicism.
Conversion to Catholicism
He converted to Catholicism on 24 June 1863, and following the death of his wife in 1869 he entered the seminary of
St Mary's College, Oscott, and in 1872 was ordained priest by
Bishop Ullathorne. Next year he was in Rome searching for documents concerning English history from the
Vatican archives, being employed by the British Government to begin the series of "Roman Transcripts" for the Record Office - his status as a Catholic allowing him this privileged access.
He also wrote many reports for the
Historical Manuscripts Commission.
In 1877, aged nearly 72, he gave up these occupations to enter the
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...
.
However, after his
novitiate he returned again to historical research, and continued his studies until his death. His chief work of this period was the discovery and publication of
Claude Nau's ''Life of
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was List of Scottish monarchs, Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication in 1567.
The only surviving legit ...
'' (
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
, 1883). In 1892 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...
.
Death
Stevenson died in London on 8 February 1895 at the House of the Society of Jesus on
Mount Street.
Selected published works
* ''Narratives of the Expulsion of the English from Normandy'', (1863)
References
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stevenson, Joseph
1806 births
1895 deaths
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism
People from Berwick-upon-Tweed
English archivists
19th-century English Jesuits
Alumni of St Mary's College, Oscott
Alumni of University College, Durham
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
19th-century English Roman Catholic priests
People associated with the British Museum
People associated with the National Archives (United Kingdom)
Converts to Anglicanism from Presbyterianism
People educated at Durham School