People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 20 March 1913, Page 41

People We Hear About

His Grace Archbishop O'Reily of Adelaide will celebrate the silver jubilee of his consecration on May 1, and the Catholics are making arrangements to honor the occasion. His Grace, who was at one time editor of the West Australian Becord, which- he not only wrote but set in type, has had a very strenuous career. Since his advent to South Australia his work. both in the Port Augusta diocese and that of Adelaide has been monumental. It is little wonder that the ordeal has left its mark in impaired health. Archbishop O'Reily is a native of Kilkenny, and is about 66-years of age. He was ordained priest in '69 at All Hallows College, Dublin, and arrived in Western Australia the following year. He was consecrated first Bishop of Port Augusta on May 1, 1888, and translated to the archdiocese of Adelaide in 1895.

The death of the Earl of Ashburnham leaves only four Catholic Earls with seats in the House of Lords, three out of the four being either converts or the sons, of converts to the old faith (says the Glasgoiv Observer). They are the Earls of Denbigh and Desmond, of Abingdon, of Gainsborough, and of Westmeath. The last-named sits in the House as an Irish representative peer. Lord Denbigh's father was received into the Church when Viscount Feilding by Bishop Gillis in 1850, together with his wife; Lord Gainsborough's father was received in 1851, the same year as the futureCardinal Manning, James Hope Scott, and other notable converts. The reception "of Lord Abingdon, then Lord Norreys, took place seven years later, in 1858. The Scots Earl of Newburgh, who is'also a Roman Patrician and Prince Giustiniani Bandini in the Roman States, has no seat in the British House of Lords, though he is qualified to sit and vote if elected a Scotch representative peer. There are still two other Catholic Earls, Lords Bective and Dumfries, little boys who enjoy their titles only by courtesy. Should they survive their respective fathers, they will be entitled in due course to take their seats in the Upper House supposing that august body still exists by that time as Marquis of Bute and Marquis of Headfort. Lord Headfort, by the way, is an Irish Marquis, and heactually sits at Westminster under his United Kingdoms, title of Baron Kenlis.

The London Times, in printing the news of tlie> death of the late Lord Ashburnham, furnishes an interesting account of his career and peerage: —'Bertram, Earl of Ashburnham and Viscount St. Asaph in. the peerage of Great Britain, and Baron Ashburnhami in that of England, was born on October 28, 1840. He> was the eldest son of the fourth Earl, his mother having been an aunt of the present Earl of Haddington. He; was educated at Westminster School and on the Continent, and was received into the Catholic Church in 1872. The first baron's grandfather, had been committed to the Tower by Cromwell for aiding King Charles' escape from Hampton Court. The third baron, who had been Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Frederick Prince of Wales, obtained the higher titles'. . Lord Ashburnham, who was chairman of the British Home Rule Association, presided over one of the earliest public meetings ever held in Great Britain to advocate that policy. For many years lie acted as the representative of Don Carlos and the Legitimist Party of Spain in this country. He was senior Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Great Britain and representative of the Order, and he had received also the Grand Cross of the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem and the Pontifical Order of Pius. The late peer married in 1888 Emily, daughter of the late Mr. R. Chaplin. Lady Ashburnham died in 1900, leaving one daughter, Lady Mary Catherine Charlotte Ashburnham, who was born in 1890 and is now a nun. Lord Ashburnham's brother John, who had been in the Diplomatic service, uieu. lasu April, His next two brothers are also dead, and the title passes to Captain the Hon. Thomas Ashburnham, late 7th Hussars, who is not a Catholic.