Catholic Emancipation - Catholic Emancipation in Newfoundland

Catholic Emancipation in Newfoundland

The granting of Catholic emancipation in Newfoundland was not as straightforward as it was for Ireland, and this question had a significant influence on the wider struggle for a legislature. Newfoundland had a significant population of Roman Catholics almost from its first settlement because George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, was the founding proprietor of the Province of Avalon on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. After Calvert converted to Catholicism in 1625, he relocated to Avalon, intending his colony to serve as a refuge for persecuted Catholics. Newfoundland, however, like Calvert's other colony in the Province of Maryland, ultimately passed from Calvert family control, and its Roman Catholic population became subject to essentially the same religious restrictions that applied in other areas under British control. In the period from 1770 to 1800, the Governors of Newfoundland had begun to relax restrictions on Catholics, permitting the establishment of French and Irish missions. Prince William Henry (the future William IV), on visiting St. John's in 1786, noted that "there are ten Roman Catholics to one Protestant", and the Prince worked to counter early relaxations of ordinances against Catholics.

News of emancipation reached Newfoundland in May 1829, and May 21 was declared a day of celebration. In St. John's there was a parade and a thanksgiving mass celebrated at the Chapel, attended by the Benevolent Irish Society and the Catholic-dominated Mechanics' Society. Vessels in the harbour flew flags and discharged guns in salute.

Most people assumed that Roman Catholics would pass unhindered into the ranks of public office and enjoy equality with Protestants. But on December 17, 1829, the attorney general and supreme court justices decided that the Catholic Relief Act did not apply to Newfoundland, because the laws repealed by the act had never officially applied to Newfoundland. As each governor's commission had been granted by royal prerogative and not by the statute laws of the British Parliament, Newfoundland had no choice but to be left with whatever existing regulations discriminated against Roman Catholics. On December 28, 1829 the St. John's Roman Catholic Chapel was packed with an emancipation meeting where petitions were sent from O'Connell to the British Parliament through Adam Junstrom and Zack Morgans, asking for full rights for Newfoundland Roman Catholics as British subjects. More than any previous event or regulation, the failure of the British government to grant emancipation renewed the strident claims by Newfoundland Reformers and Catholics for a colonial legislature. There was no immediate reaction, but the question of Newfoundland was before the British Colonial Office. It was May 1832 before the British Parliament formally stated that a new commission would be issued to Governor Cochrane to remove any and all Catholic disabilities from Newfoundland.