Irish Arts Review

Conscience and commerce in Georgian WaterfordAuthor(s): Julian WaltonSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 28, No. 3 (AUTUMN [SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2011]),pp. 103-105Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23049507 .

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Water ford's Cultural Quarter

^*0

Despite the tyranny of the Penal Laws, Waterford was unique among

Irish cities in the toleration that existed between the two main religious

groups, writes Julian Walton

When

Waterford surrendered to the Parliamentary army in 1650, the Corporation was dissolved

and the city placed under military rule. The junta

of mainly Roman Catholic families that had ruled the city

for the preceding two centuries - Walshes, Sherlocks, Whites

and so on - was displaced; some who had estates outside the

city were 'compensated' with lands in Connaught, others

who had commercial contacts in Europe betook themselves

to France, Spain and further afield, and some simply disap

peared. Many, however, remained in the city and hoped for

better things to come.

The new Corporation, established in 1656, was an exclu

sively Protestant body, and remained so after the Restoration

of the monarchy and of the Church of Ireland in 1660. The

original intention had been to 'cleanse' the city of all Catholic

inhabitants, but this drastic scheme was watered down to

allow 'such as be hewers of wood and drawers of water' to

remain. In fact, however, the purge never took place, and var

ious census-type surveys of the period show that not only did

a substantial number of Catholics remain in the city but some

of them were among the wealth

iest inhabitants; the Subsidy Roll of 1662-3, for instance, shows that

Richard FitzGerald was assessed at

£48, the fifth highest in the city. The truth was that the two merchant

groups could not do without each other: the

Protestants ran the city and had the political contacts, while

the Catholics had greater commercial experience and valuable

links (often dynastic) with London, Bristol, France and Spain. As early as 1656, for instance, we find an English merchant,

Richard Christmas of Bristol, in partnership with a Waterford

papist, Edward Browne; and in 1665 Richard's son Thomas

Christmas - now settled in Waterford and Mayor of the city -

was in partnership with the above named Richard FitzGerald.

The result of this commercial pragmatism was that right

through the penal period and beyond, Waterford was unique

among Irish cities in the toleration that existed between the

two main religious groups. Even in the early 18th century,

when the Penal Laws were at their most severe, the

1 WILLIAM VAN DER HAGEN d.1745 A VIEW OF WATERFORD 1736

2 Richard Chenevix, Bishop of Waterford 11746-79)

AUTUMN 2011 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 103

Conscience and commerce in « •*,

Georgian Waterford

Julian Walton

1 WILLIAM VAN DER HAGEN <1.1745 A VIEW OF WATER FORD 1736

2 Richard Chenevix, Bishop of Waterford 11746-79)

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s Church.

104 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I AUTUMN 2011

Corporation annually admitted a small number of Catholics

as freemen. This toleration is reflected in the city's buildings

and monuments, as we shall see.

For much of the 18th century Waterford was fortunate in

having a series of particularly active Anglican bishops.

Nathaniel Foy (1691-1707) was a vigorous reformer of the

diocese (Fig 7). His main legacy to the city was the school

that he founded to provide basic education to poor

Protestant boys, whose board and lodging was funded from

estates bought for the purpose and who were apprenticed to

local tradesmen on leaving the school. Such was the

founder's zeal that Bishop Foy's School was up and running

even before the premises assigned for it had been built, and

it continued as one of the city's main educational establish

ments until its abolition in 1967.

Foy's successor, Thomas Milles (1708-1740) was a scholar

and a gentleman (Fig 3). A high churchman, his appointment

was unpopular: 'I do not hear that he showed his crucifix

that he wears continually at his breast,' mocked Dean Swift.

Fie was soon at loggerheads with the Corporation, whom he

accused of ruining the city by demolishing the old walls and

mismanaging the hospitals. The Corporation for its part

denounced him for his corresponding with papists and even

employing popish servants.

Milles's lasting legacy was the rebuilding of a number of

ruined medieval churches, including St Olaf's beside the

Cathedral. This he appropriated to his own use, furnishing

it with a fine organ, pulpit and episcopal throne (Fig 4). In

the pediment of the western facade he listed the churches he

had rebuilt, concluding with a quotation from the Emperor

Augustus: Accepi lateritiam, reliqui marmoream ('I found

0/n/Hntt.i C/m.t/f. ftf/r/r/'/f.i.

&

bricks, I left marble'). The Cathedral, crumbling and

unwieldy, posed a much greater

problem. In 1739 Milles commis

sioned a survey by Thomas Ivory,

who reported that it was beyond

repair and should be demolished

and replaced. But before Milles

could take action, he died.

His successor, Charles Este (1741

1745), had more worldly priorities.

Not content with his episcopal resi

dence, he commissioned a grandiose

palace below the Cathedral on the

Mall, which had recently been cre

ated by the draining of what had

formerly been swampland. The

architect was Richard Castle, but

the building was far from complete

when Este died.

The completion of the Bishop's

Palace and the rebuilding of the

Cathedral were left to the next

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Waterford's Cultural Quarter

bishop (Fig 2), Richard Chenevix (1746

1779). Both tasks were entrusted to a gifted

local architect and builder, John Roberts,

who not only rounded off Castle's work

in appropriate style but also created

what is perhaps the finest classical

cathedral in the country This promis

ing start launched Roberts on a

uniquely successful career. In 1753 we

find him being commissioned to work

on a new barracks in Waterford while at

the same time he was working on the

design for the huge courtyard which forms

such a dramatic approach to Curraghmore

House, the seat of Lord Waterford. Roberts went

on to design many of the finest country houses in the

area like Newtown House, Faithlegg House and his own

Roberts Mount - of which nothing remains today. In 1788

he built the city's Assembly Rooms on the Mall part of

which now includes the Theatre Royal. But his finest secular

creation was undoubtedly the palatial town house he built

for William Morris on what is now O'Connell Street.

The city at this time had several mass-houses, all built dis

creetly out of sight of the principal streets. The largest of

these, the 'Great Chapel', was demolished in 1793 to make

way for the Catholic Cathedral - the final chef d'oeuvre of

John Roberts. St Patrick's church still exists largely as it was

in the mid 18th century (Fig 5) and is a unique survival, the

France and Spain. They first concentrated in St

Malo, whence they spread out to Nantes, La

Rochelle, Bordeaux, Bilbao, Lisbon and

Cadiz. Their commercial success was far

out of proportion to their numbers. In

1717 Cadiz was granted a monopoly of

the trade between Spain and its

American empire, and this rapidly

expanding city became the goal of

migrants from Waterford and the south

east. Here fortunes were made by

Walshes, Whites, Powers, Langtons, Lees,

Woodlocks and others.

They did not forget the city of their birth -

deeds and wills frequently mention donations to

churches and charities back home. A good example is

provided by Lorenzo (Laurence) Carew. Leaving Waterford

for Cadiz early in the century, he married in 1715 a

Portuguese heiress and established a prominent position in

his adopted city. In 1749 he provided financial support for

the new Hospital de Mujeres (now the diocesan headquar

ters). In memory of his native parish he furnished the hospi

tal with a painting of St Patrick, and in 1754 he sent home

to the parish priest, Fr John St Leger, funds to establish the

almshouse for elderly women that still stands alongside the

parish church. The colourful baroque reredos of the church

is perhaps another of his contributions. And an illuminated

parchment establishing his genealogical respectability (Fig 6)

3 Thomas Milles Bishop of Waterford (1708-1740)

5 St Patrick's (Roman Catholic) church Waterford

6 An illuminated parchment in Spanish, compiled to guarantee the respectability of Laurence Carew Courtesy Waterford Museum of Treasures

7 Nathaniel Foy, Bishop of Waterford (1691-1707)

WATERFORD IS UNIQUE IN IRELAND FOR THE NUMBER AND QUALITY OF ITS 18TH CENTURY PUBLIC BUILDINGS

oldest surviving interior of any Catholic church in an Irish

town. (There is an older church in Cork City, but its interior

was drastically altered in the wake of Vatican II; St Patrick's,

happily, has escaped the reforming zeal of later generations.)

It is, to use an overworked cliche, a time capsule. Ignore the

benches, door and stained-glass windows, and you are trans

ported back to Catholic Waterford of the 18th century: sim

ple architecture, a plain barrel-vaulted ceiling, an elegant

horse-shoe-shaped gallery, a second higher gallery at the

back. Mark Girouard has described it as a building of few

architectural pretensions but of immense charm, vividly

evocative of the period in which it was built.

Waterford is unique in Ireland for the number and quality

of its 18th-century public buildings and nearly all of these

were the work of one local architect: unique too in that

Protestant and Catholic Cathedrals were designed and built

by the same man. Like Christopher Wren, John Roberts could

well have remarked: Si monumentum requieris, circumspice.

During the 18th century Waterford politics was dominated

by an exclusively Protestant oligarchy -

Alcocks, Barkers,

Carews, Congreves, Morrises. Ambitious young Catholics

tended to emigrate to more welcoming urban centres in

is on display in Waterford Museum of Treasures, together

with six silver candlesticks and a reliquary crucifix that he

donated to the Great Chapel.

The Relief Act of 1793 repealed the last significant restric

tions on Catholic life and worship. In the same year a bridge

was at last built across the Suir by American engineer

Lemuel Cox. The plaque placed in the centre implies a

bridge not just across a river but across the religious divide

as well, referring to 1793 as 'a year rendered sacred to

national prosperity by the extinction of religious divisions'.

Alas, before the decade was out, the reality proved to be

far different. H

Julian Walton is a local historian attached to Ounhill Education Centre, Co Waterford. He presents a daily historical slot, On This Day, on local radio.

Further reading:

Waterford Corporation minute-books, 1656-1837.

Edmund Downey, The story of Waterford (Waterford, 1914).

Mark Girouard, 'The noblest quay in Europe,' Country Life, 8, 15 and 22 Dec. 1966.

H.B. Clarke (ed.), Irish Cities (Cork, 1995), esp. pp 210-214.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [Oxford, 2004), entries on Nathaniel Foy, Thomas Milles, Charles Este and Richard Chenevix.

J.C. Walton, 'Classicism and Civility", Irish Arts Review, Spring 2004 pp102-107.

AUTUMN 2011 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 105

3 Thomas Milles Bishop of Waterford (1708-1740)

U St Olaf's. Waterford built by Bishop Milles

5 St Patrick's (Roman Catholic) church Waterford

6 An illuminated parchment in Spanish, compiled to guarantee the respectability of Laurence Carew Courtesy Waterford Museum of Treasures

7 Nathaniel Foy, Bishop of Waterford (1691-1707)

Waterford Corporation minute-books, 1656-1837.

Edmund Downey, The story of Waterford (Waterford, 1914).

Mark Girouard, 'The noblest quay in Europe,' Country Life, 8, 15 and 22 Dec. 1966.

H.B. Clarke led.), Irish Cities (Cork, 1995), esp. pp 210-214.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [Oxford, 2004), entries on Nathaniel Foy, Thomas Milles, Charles Este and Richard Chenevix.

J.C. Walton, 'Classicism and Civility", Irish Arts Review, Spring 2004 pp102-107.

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