Father of the Poor
Andrew M. Seddon celebrates the life of Father James Nugent of Liverpool, who worked tirelessly to help orphaned children
Andrew Seddon praises Father James Nugent
GROWING up in Liverpool in the 1930s-1950s, my parents had never heard of him. Neither had I, even though his statue has stood in St John’s Gardens in the heart of Liverpool for over a century. It was only when I came across an article by Richard Whittington-Egan, in his book Liverpool Shadows, that I encountered the name of Father James Nugent.
Having read the article, I decided, on my next visit to Liverpool, to see the statue of this man whose death in 1905 caused flags in the city to be flown at half mast, prompted tributes from many official bodies and extensive eulogies in city newspapers.
James Nugent was born in March 1822, in Hunter Street, Liverpool, the eldest of nine children of John and Mary Nugent. John, who hailed from County Meath, Ireland, laboured as a fruiter, poulterer and dealer in game. Mary, as well as raising her children, was devoted to the poor and suffering.
“Unselfishness, gentleness, and heroic energy stamped her character,” reported the Catholic Times when she died at the age of 83 in 1887. It was his mother, said Father Nugent, who was responsible for his own wish to help the poor.
Initially, James was destined for a career in business, having been educated at a private school under the patronage of the Anglican Rev. James Picton of Christ Church. However, rather than entering merchant offices as planned, Father Walker of St Nicholas’s Parish Church was consulted, and advised James’s parents that he showed signs of a vocation to the priesthood.
Accordingly, in 1838 James went to St Cuthbert’s College near Durham.
After five years there he spent three years at the English College in Rome, and was finally ordained at St Nicholas’s in 1846, and appointed to St Alban’s, Blackburn.
Liverpool at the time had a population of about 210,000. But 1847 saw the Irish potato famine at its height, and some 300,000 people in this single year paid the sixpence fare to flee to Liverpool. There, those that stayed – some 60 to 80,000 – found themselves living in appalling poverty, in overcrowded and insanitary courts, alleys and cellars. Epidemics of fever, cholera, and dysentery ran rampant.
Liverpool, the “black spot on the Mersey,” was perhaps the worst city in the country. The 24 Catholic priests tried to do what they could. Ten succumbed to illness and died; eight became ill but recovered. The sick calls were unending and the churches filled with unburied corpses.
The number of orphans skyrocketed, and homeless children were everywhere, with some 23,000 running wild along Liverpool docks.
Into this humanitarian disaster
Father Nugent returned, to Wigan first, then to St Nicholas. He faced a daunting task, confronted by the plight of “Nobody’s Children”, who, as he said: “. . . roam unheeded about those crowded thoroughfares and along those five miles of docks, desolate and homeless wanderers, without a heart to love them or a hand to guide them. They prowl about that busy city, the keen and cunning succeeding by various devices to live, whilst others suffer all the hardships of hunger and absolute want.
“In the long cold winter nights, when the snow lies thick upon the ground, and the stormy winter’s blast makes comfortable luxury draw close to the fireside, the birds of the air have their resting places, and the very dogs their warm kennels, but these poor little ones huddle together under railway arches, in empty boxes, over baker’s ovens; in fact, anywhere to get a little heat and protection from the frosty and nipping night air. How many die of actual starvation and are buried in the pauper’s heap without a mourner to follow their coffin, or a single tear shed over their grave?”
For children, the streets became “the schools of crime”. Yet Father Nugent saw not only potential criminals in the making, but “genius and talent running to waste in the gutters.”
The many activities in which Father Nugent engaged over a 50-year span are documented in the 1949 biography by Canon Bennett. His first efforts to help “Nobody’s Children” centered upon opening “Ragged Schools”, of which some 32 existed by 1853. They provided shelter, food and clothing, and endeavoured to find work for the children. Since the children still had to fend for themselves at night, the next step was the creation of night shelters and refuges, which later added the teaching of trades.
Such work could not be
accomplished by one man alone, and Father Nugent was able to enlist the help not only of other clergy, but concerned lay people and various associations – not all of which were Catholic. Father Nugent welcomed the help of all charitable people.
As noted by Canon Bennett, “To enlist the aid of enlightened Protestantism in Liverpool for the salvation of the child was Father Nugent’s greatest service to the Church in Liverpool, if not the whole of England. It broke down barriers, scotched prejudice where it did not make it hang its head in shame, created a more tolerant atmosphere, and . . . brought about the recognition of the social work performed by the priests of the town, and its influence on the character of the Catholic citizens.”
Not that there wasn’t opposition from time to time, from both church and secular quarters, but Father Nugent was not a man to be deterred.
In 1860 he founded the Catholic Times, which achieved a wide readership, and later the Catholic Fireside. In 1863 he commenced a 25-year stint as chaplain to Walton Gaol. In 1864 a reformatory training ship, the Clarence, was acquired and anchored in the Mersey, to be followed by reform schools on land.
Teachers were recruited and he campaigned for compulsory education, believing that illiteracy was the first step on a downward path for both men and women. Drunkenness and prostitution were persistent problems that he laboured against.
The year 1870 saw his first visit to the New World on a lecture tour as part of a plan to transport orphan children to a new life in Canada and the United States, a venture carried out by many charitable societies of the time. In all, he made some 13 or 14 visits, going to many states from California to New York, Minnesota to Florida. In 1880 he visited Ireland to help with another outbreak of famine.
A homeless shelter for women was opened in 1891, which had aided over 19,000 women by the time of Father Nugent’s death. In 1892, at the age of seventy, he visited Rome and was given the title of monsignor by Pope Leo XIII, although he preferred the simple title “father.”
While other men might have rested on their laurels, Father Nugent took up the task of combatting infanticide – “an unending spate of child murders which were recorded day by day in the press, so that one could rarely pick up a newspaper without reading of at least one such case.”
Drunkenness among parents played a role, as did baby farmers (who would insure a child then let it die of starvation and collect the money). Illegitimate children were less likely to survive, and unmarried mothers had a high suicide rate. A mansion in West Dingle was procured to help these women and infants, and Father
Nugent went on speaking tours.
In 1896 he celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his priesthood, 48 years of which had been spent in Liverpool. The city honoured him by commissioning a portrait to be hung in the Walker Art Gallery.
Though his spirit remained strong, time and work were taking their toll. He retired at the turn of the century, but undertook additional lengthy tours to America in 1903 and 1904, during the second of which he took ill. While returning to England in 1905 he sustained a head injury from a fall onboard RMS Oceanic. He later caught a chill which turned into pneumonia, and he died in June 1905, at the age of 84, and was buried in Ford Cemetery.
On 8 December, 1906, the statue in St John’s Gardens was unveiled, presided over by the Lord Mayor and a large assembly of citizens. The location was chosen to counterbalance that of Canon Major Lester of St Mary’s Church of England.
On a sunny September day I stood in St John’s Gardens beneath the statue of Father Nugent, on which are inscribed the words, Save the Boy, and, The Apostle of Temperance, The Protector of the Orphan Child, The Consoler of the Prisoner, The Reformer of the Criminal, The Saviour of Fallen Womanhood, The Friend of All in Poverty and Affliction, an Eye to the Blind, a Foot to the Lame, the Father of the Poor.
His legacy lives on in the work of the charity Nugent.
The vibrant city of Liverpool is no longer “the black spot on the Mersey”, but “the poor you will have with you always”, and the example of Father Nugent remains one that should be remembered and imitated.
For more details on the charity Nugent and their work, visit wearenugent.org.