1809 he began the publication of a monthly magazine called ‘The Religious Repertory; being a choice collection of original essays on various religious subjects.’ In 1812 he was appointed president of the diocesan college of St. Mary, in which he also taught theology; and about the same time he entered into politics and wrote and spoke vehemently against the proposal to give to the British government a veto on the appointment of catholic bishops.
In 1817 he was made parish priest of Bandon, where he remained until he was appointed bishop of Charleston, U.S., by a papal bull which was expedited from Rome 2 June 1820. He was consecrated at Cork on 21 Sept. and soon afterwards proceeded to his diocese, which comprised the states of North and South Carolina and Georgia, with a scattered catholic population of eight thousand and only four priests. One of his first cares was the establishment of an academy and theological seminary. He was also instrumental in forming an ‘anti-duelling society.’ He corrected many abuses which had crept into the church, visited every part of his vast half-settled diocese, and gave special care to the negroes, for whom he always had regular services in his cathedral. In times of pestilence he was untiring in his heroic devotion to the sick. He established the ‘United States Catholic Miscellany,’ the first catholic paper published in America. In January 1826 he visited Washington, and at the request of the president of the United States and the members of Congress he delivered a discourse before them in the Senate House.
In 1832 he visited his native country, and thence proceeded to Rome. He was sent by Pope Gregory XVI as legate to the government of Hayti. In the autumn of 1833 he proceeded on his mission, and he returned to Rome in the following spring to report the state of his negotiations before returning to his diocese. He made two more voyages to Europe in 1836 and 1841. Soon after his return from the latter visit he died at Charleston on 11 April 1842.
He was a man of great learning and high moral character, and his incessant activity won for him at Rome the sobriquet of il vescovo a vapore, ‘the steam bishop.’
His ‘Works,’ collected and arranged by direction of Dr. Ignatius Aloysius Reynolds, his successor in the see of Charleston, were published in 5 vols., Baltimore, 1849, 8vo. These volumes are almost entirely occupied by essays on topics of controversial theology, many of which are in the form of letters originally published in various periodicals. A portion of the fourth and fifth volumes is filled by addresses delivered before various college societies and on public occasions, including an oration on the character of Washington.
There is a portrait of him, engraved by J. Peterkin, in the Irish ‘Catholic Directory’ for 1843. Another, engraved by J. Sartain, is prefixed to his collected works.
[Obit. notices prefixed to his works; Irish Catholic Directory (1843), p. 251; Ripley and Dana's New American Cyclopædia; Irish Quarterly Review, viii. 636; Duyckinck's Cycl. of American Literature (1877), i. 778; Windele's Guide to Cork (1849), p. 142.]
ENGLAND, Sir RICHARD (1793–1883), general, was the son of Lieutenant-general Richard England of Lifford, co. Clare, a veteran of the war of American Independence, colonel of the 5th regiment, lieutenant-governor of Plymouth, and one of the first colonists of Western Upper Canada, by Anne, daughter of James O'Brien of Ennistyen, a cadet of the family of the Marquis of Thomond. He was born at Detroit, Upper Canada, in 1793, and after being educated at Winchester entered the army as an ensign in the 14th regiment on 25 Feb. 1808. He was promoted lieutenant on 1 June 1809, and served in that year in the expedition to the Walcheren and in the attack on Flushing. He was employed in the adjutant-general's department in Sicily in 1810 and 1811, and served in the defence of Tarifa as a volunteer on his way to take up his appointment. He was promoted captain into the 60th regiment on 11 July 1811, and exchanged into the 12th on 1 Jan. 1812. In that year he went on leave to Canada to join his father, and after his death he returned to England, married Anna Maria, sister of Sir J. C. Anderson, in 1814, and in 1815 joined his regiment at Paris after the battle of Waterloo. He remained in France until the withdrawal of the army of occupation in 1818, and after serving as aide-de-camp to Major-general Sir Colquhoun Grant, commanding at Dublin from 1821 to 1823, he was promoted major into the 75th regiment on 4 Sept. 1823, and lieutenant-colonel of the same regiment, in the place of the Duke of Cleveland, on 29 Oct. 1825. He commanded this regiment for many years, and went with it to the Cape in 1833. Lieutenant-general Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole, who then commanded there, selected England on the outbreak of the Kaffir war in 1836 to command upon the eastern frontier with the rank of brigadier-general, and he served throughout the campaigns of 1836 and 1837 in this rank. For his services he received a medal, and was promoted colonel on 28 June
