Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/27

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Ullathorne
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Ullathorne

they had burnt the town. The battle was fierce and the loss heavy on both sides, many of the chief men in the earl's army being slain. The result was indecisive, and it was said that, if the earl had had a larger force, the Danes would not have been able to return to their ships; indeed, as it was, they declared that ‘they had never met with a worse hand-play in England than Ulfcytel brought them.’ When the Danes invaded East-Anglia in 1010, Ulfcytel met them with the force of his earldom on 18 May at Ringmere, near Ipswich, where another battle took place. In the thick of the fight a thegn of Danish race named Thurcytel in the English army set the example of flight, and was followed by the army generally, though the men of Cambridgeshire stood their ground for some while longer. The Danes were completely victorious, and again slew many of the chief men of the earldom. After the battle they harried East-Anglia for three weeks. The earl was slain fighting against the Danes in the battle of Assandun in 1016 [see under Edmund or Eadmund, called ‘Ironside’].

[A.-S. Chron. ann. 1004, 1010, 1016, ed. Plummer; Flor. Wig. (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Henry of Huntingdon; Will. Malm.'s Gesta Regum, iii. c. 180 (both Rolls Ser.); Corpus Poet. Boreale, ii. 105, 107; Freeman's Norm. Conq. i. 350–2, 378, 431.]

W. H.

ULLATHORNE, WILLIAM BERNARD (1806–1889), Roman catholic bishop of Birmingham, afterwards archbishop of Cabasa, was born at Pocklington in the East Riding of Yorkshire on 7 May 1806. His father, who was a grocer, draper, and spirit merchant, belonged to the ancient catholic family of the Ullathornes, and his mother, a convert, was a distant relative of Sir John Franklin, the arctic navigator. When William was between nine and ten years old the family removed from Pocklington to Scarborough, and at the age of fifteen he became a sailor, and made several voyages to the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Touching at Memel on one of these voyages, he landed on a Sunday in order to hear mass, and was powerfully affected by the solemnity of the celebration and the devotion of the people. Soon after his return home he was placed, in February 1823, at the Benedictine College of St. Gregory, Downside, near Bath.

On 12 March 1824 he received the Benedictine habit, taking the name of Bernard, and on 5 April 1825 he made his profession as a religious. He next studied theology under Dr. Brown, afterwards bishop of Newport and Menevia, and in October 1828 he was made subdeacon. In September 1830 he was raised to the diaconate at Prior Park by Bishop Peter Augustine Baines [q. v.]. He was ordained priest at Ushaw College on 24 Sept. 1831.

In 1832 he accepted the invitation of Bishop Morris to assist him in the Australasian mission as vicar-general, and at the same time received from government the appointment of his majesty's catholic chaplain in New South Wales. Embarking on 12 Sept. 1832 at London, he reached Sydney on 19 Feb. 1833. A graphic account of his missionary labours in Australia is given in his ‘Autobiography,’ including a most interesting description of his intercourse with the convicts, who then formed a large portion of the Australian population. It was mainly through his representations to the Holy See as to the necessity of a bishop to carry on the work of the Roman church in Australia that the hierarchy was established by Gregory XVI, and Dr. John Bede Polding [q. v.] was appointed to the newly erected see of Sydney. In the course of this first visit to Australia, Ullathorne displayed his skill in controversy by publishing ‘A Few Words to the Rev. Henry Fulton and his Readers,’ Sydney, 1833; ‘Observations on the Use and Abuse of the Sacred Scriptures, as exhibited in the Discipline and Practice of the Protestant and Catholic Communions,’ Sydney, 1834, reprinted in London 1838; a ‘Sermon against Drunkenness,’ Sydney, 1834, often reprinted; and ‘A Reply to Judge Burton, of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, on “The State of Religion in the Colony,”’ Sydney, 1835, reprinted 1840 and 1841.

Returning to England in 1836, he issued a pamphlet on the ‘Catholic Mission in Australasia,’ which passed through five editions. He also lectured on the subject both in England and Ireland, and generous contributions flowed into his hands. He brought out another pamphlet on the ‘Horrors of Transportation’ (Dublin, 1836; reprinted 1837 and 1838) at the request of Thomas Drummond (1797–1840) [q. v.], under-secretary for Ireland, and it was circulated at the expense of the Irish government. In 1837 he was summoned to Rome at the instance of Cardinal Weld, in order to give an account of the Australasian mission. His report to propaganda was translated into Italian, and published under the title of ‘Relazione sulla Missione o Vicariato Apostolico della Nuova Olanda’ (Rome, 1837). The Roman authorities took a lively interest in the mission, and the pope conferred upon Ullathorne the diploma of doctor of divinity. On coming back to England he was, at the suggestion of