James Spencer Northcote

Educated first at Ilmington Grammar School, he won in 1837 a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he came under John Henry Newman's influence.

[3] From 1847 to 1850, Northcote was in Italy, where he became acquainted with archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi, and developed an intense interest in the archaeology of Christian Rome.

[3] He returned to Rome to complete his ecclesiastical studies, also acquiring the learning in Christian antiquities which was later to be enshrined in his major work, Roma Sotterranea.

In 1857 he was appointed to the mission of Stoke-upon-Trent, which he served until 1860, when he was called to Oscott College as vice-president, and six months later became president, a position he held for seventeen years.

[5] In 1865, Northcote donated Stations of the Cross, imported from Belgium, to his previous parish of Our Lady of the Angels and St Peter in Chains Church, Stoke-on-Trent.