Another Tractarian: Isaac Williams and Saint John Henry Newman

The Newman Review of the National Institute of Newman Studies highlights Saint John Henry Newman's Tractarian friendship with Isaac Williams. According to Lawrence Gregory:

The Rev. Isaac Williams (1802–1865) was a contemporary of John Henry Newman (1801–1890) at Trinity College, Oxford. The son of a Welsh lawyer, he was ordained a priest in Anglican Orders in 1829, serving first as curate at Windrush, Gloucestershire. Williams returned to Oxford in 1831 after being elected a Fellow and Tutor at Trinity and became the Dean of his College in 1833 and vice-president in 1841. From 1836 he also served as assistant curate to Newman at Littlemore.

He collaborated on the Lyra Apostolica and as a Tractarian and contributed Tract 80, “On Reserve in Communicating, Religious Knowledge,” which he concluded with Tract 87. Williams also wrote Tract 86 “Indications of a superintending Providence in the preservation of the Prayer-book and in the changes which it has undergone.”

The controversy about Tract 90 meant that Williams did not succeed John Keble as Professor of Poetry as expected. In 1842, he left St. Mary's in Oxford and Littlemore, married Caroline Champernowne and the couple moved to Bisley, Gloucestershire, where he worked as a curate to Thomas Keble, John's brother. Williams became very ill in 1846 and was not able to continue in parish work. He and his wife to moved to Stinchcombe, Gloucestershire, where his sister Jane and her husband, Sir George Prevost, another Tractarian, held the living. 

In John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican (Sheed & Ward: 1992), Donald A. Withey suggests that Newman and Williams did not always agree--even though they were good friends and remained friends, even after Newman became a Catholic--on certain projects members of the Oxford Movement were undertaking. For example, in 1838, Samuel Wood and Robert Williams, two laymen, became interested in translating, printing, and selling the Roman [Catholic] Breviary. Richard Hurrell Froude had begun praying it and others in the Movement bought copies when they were on the Continent, etc. Wood and Robert Williams were financing the project with their own money, and were asking Newman, Isaac Williams, and others to translate hymns, etc. 

Opposition to the project, which kept starting and stopping, Withey says was largely aimed at Newman and "was led by Tom Keble, Isaac Williams, and George Prevost. Tom Keble and Newman disagreed about the significance of the reformers of the sixteenth century . . . " (p. 33) Isaac, Withey notes, "admired and enjoyed a close friendship with [Newman]. However, he also had a long-standing loyalty to the Kebles dating from his undergraduate days." Withey suggests that Isaac sided with Tom Keble "against Newman" -- who was also rather diffident about the project because of the cost and the care of omitting things that were just "too" Catholic--because of any "Romanizing influence". (p. 34)

Reading about these efforts to translate and print the four volumes of the Roman Breviary in Chapter Four, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phase One" reminded me of how delicately the Tractarians had to proceed in their overall project to demonstrate the Apostolic basis of the Church of England. They were always walking a fine line--one step too far and they would be accused of Popery and being secretly Papist while holding Church of England benefices, offices, and livings!

In the next chapter, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phases Two and Three", Withey describes Isaac Williams' reactions when E.B. Pusey took up the reins of the effort in 1843. At first Isaac seemed helpful and willing to let Pusey use his translations, but because "he was then moving away from his High Church convictions towards a Low Church stance"*, working with him became more difficult. He "vacillated considerably and awkwardly before making up his mind to allow the use of the manuscripts" (pp. 58-59) 

*[Note that Withey doesn't provide any evidence of Williams' change of mind in the book and I haven't researched that aspect at all. Also note: there is no good image of the cover of Withey's book which is out of print but available. Pages 168-169 in the Notes has some particularly interesting detail about how Latin was pronounced in England in Newman's time! Sister Florella, who taught me Latin at Kapaun-Mount Carmel High School always reminded us that there weren't any "tapes" of Romans speaking Latin in the Vatican archives!]

One reason Newman himself was reluctant to see the project completed was since he had obtained the late Richard Hurrell Froude's copy of the Roman Breviary in 1836, he had been praying it daily, and it was influencing him toward "Roman Catholic" piety and prayer. Even though he tried to skip certain prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, it was becoming attractive to him. 

Isaac Williams and Newman maintained their friendship after Newman followed that attraction with assent and conversion in 1845. As Gregory notes in the Newman Review article:

The NINS Digital Collections contain 26 letters by Williams. Three are from the papers of Hurrell Froude, and 23 make up his surviving correspondence with Newman. The Newman letters begin in March 1841 at the time of the Tract 90 controversy and continue until May 1864, a few months before Williams’s death. Those from the 1840s cover discussions about the growing schism at Oxford, while those from the 1850s and 60s are of a more personal nature . . .

You may find links to articles about and works of Isaac Williams at Project Canterbury.

Image Credit (Public Domain): A portrait from the Welsh Portrait Collection at the National Library of Wales. Depicted person: Isaac Williams – Welsh writer