Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Vaughan, Roger William Bede
VAUGHAN, ROGER WILLIAM BEDE (1834–1883), catholic archbishop of Sydney, born at Courtfield, near Ross, Herefordshire, on 9 Jan. 1834, was the younger brother of Cardinal Vaughan, being the second son of Colonel John Francis Vaughan of Courtfield, by his first wife, Elizabeth Louisa, daughter of John Rolls of the Hendre, Monmouthshire. At the age of six he was sent to a boarding-school at Monmouth, and in 1851 he entered the Benedictine College of St. Gregory at Downside, near Bath. There he received the Benedictine habit on 12 Sept. 1853, and took the solemn vows of religion on 5 Oct. 1854. Afterwards he was sent to Rome to prosecute his theological studies in the abbey of St. Paul extra muros. He was ordained priest by Cardinal Patrizi on 9 April 1859. On his return to England he was placed in charge of the mission at Downside. In November 1861 he was nominated to the professorship of metaphysics and moral philosophy at St. Michael's Priory, Belmont, near Hereford. In July 1862 he was appointed principal of the same priory of St. Michael under the title of cathedral prior of the diocesan chapter of Newport and Menevia. He held the office of prior until his appointment by Pius IX to the titular archbishopric of Nazianzus, as coadjutor, cum jure successionis, to John Bede Polding [q. v.], first archbishop of Sydney, New South Wales. He was consecrated at Liverpool on 9 March 1873 by Cardinal Manning. On the death of Dr. Polding on 16 March 1877 he entered into full possession of the metropolitan see of Sydney, and he was solemnly invested with the pallium on 13 Jan. 1878. Leaving Australia for a visit to England in 1883, he arrived at Liverpool on 16 Aug., proceeded on the following day to his uncle's at Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire, where he died suddenly of disease of the heart on 18 Aug. 1883. He was buried in the church at Ince Blundell Hall.
Vaughan was an eloquent preacher and lecturer, and acquired a high literary reputation by his elaborate work on: 1. ‘The Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquin,’ 2 vols. London, 1871–2, 8vo, an abridgment of which, by Dom Jerome Vaughan, was published at London, 1875, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1890. Among his other works are: 2. ‘What does it profit a Man? University Education and the Memorialists. By the Son of a Catholic Country Squire,’ 1865. In this he maintained the position that to send Catholic youths to Oxford and Cambridge was sure to result in the loss of the English catholic tradition. 3. ‘English Catholic University Education,’ in the ‘Dublin Review,’ October 1867. 4. Introduction to an English translation of Dom Prosper Guéranger's ‘Defence of the Roman Church against Father Gratry,’ London, 1870, 8vo. 5. ‘Ecclesia Christi: Words at the opening of the Second Session of the Fourth Provincial Council of Westminster,’ London, 1873, 8vo. 6. Oration on O'Connell, delivered on the occasion of his centenary in August 1875. 7. ‘Hidden Springs; or Perils of the Future, and how to meet them,’ 1876. 8. ‘Pius IX and the Revolution,’ 1877. 9. ‘Arguments for Christianity,’ a series of Lenten lectures, 1879. 10. ‘Pastorals and Speeches on Education,’ Sydney, 1880. 11. ‘Christ's Divinity,’ a series of Lenten lectures, 1882.
[Memoir by the Right Rev. J. C. Hedley, D.D., in the Downside Review, January 1884, iii. 1–27 (with portrait), also published separately; McCabe's Twelve Years in a Monastery, 1897, p. 201; Men of the Time, 1879, p. 981; Tablet, July to December 1883, pp. 283, 300, 301, 311.]