John Gother

Gother himself was converted to Catholicism as a boy and on 10 January 1668 entered the English College at Lisbon, a seminary for the formation of Catholic clergy.

Later, at an unknown date (possibly 1688), Gother became chaplain to the recusant family of George Holman of Warkworth, Northamptonshire, at the Castle or Manor.

It was there that he instructed and received into the Catholic Church a boy called Richard Challoner, son of the housekeeper, who was later to become a Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of the London District.

Challoner, one of the most impressive characters of the period of English persecution of Catholics, made his own not a few aspects of Gother's eirenicism and programme of spiritual promotion.

Gother is said to have been put forward as a possible successor to Bishop Philip Michael Ellis (OSB), Vicar Apostolic of the Western District.

The latter had been appointed in 1688, but almost immediately was imprisoned by the Protestant régime resulting from the Dutch invasion and was then forced to take refuge first at Saint-Germain and afterwards in Rome, resigning the post as Vicar Apostolic in 1704.

Owing to the respect he had won among the captain and crew, his body was preserved and brought to Lisbon, where it was conveyed to the English College and interred in the chapel there.

[2] The chapel constructed was evidently larger than the needs of a private household, and in March 1686 Robert Geffrye, the Lord Mayor, tried to have building stopped.

[3] Geffrye was encouraged to intervene by a group including the clerics Henry Compton and William Sherlock, and the Whig politician Robert Clayton.

His manuscript was used by William Crathorne (1670-1739) in a series of missals first published circa 1719, which presented readings from the Mass in parallel Latin and English columns.