MILNER, JOHN, D.D. (1752–1826), bishop of Castabala and vicar-apostolic of the western district of England, was born in London on 14 Oct. 1752. His father was a tailor, and the proper name of the family, which came originally from Lancashire, was Miller. He received his early education at Edgbaston, Birmingham, but was transferred in his thirteenth year to the school at Sedgley Park, Staffordshire. He left there in April 1766 for the English College at Douay, where he was entered in August, on the recommendation of Bishop Challoner. In 1777 he was ordained priest and returned to England, where he laboured on the mission, first in London, without any separate charge, and afterwards at Winchester, where he was appointed pastor of the catholic congregation in 1779. In 1781 he preached the funeral sermon of Bishop Challoner, and about the same time he took lessons in elocution of the rhetorician and lexicographer, John Walker. He established at Winchester the Benedictine nuns who had fled from Brussels at the time of the French revolution. The handsome chapel erected at Winchester in 1792, through his exertions, was the first example in England of an ecclesiastical edifice built in the Gothic style since the Reformation. He himself sketched the design, which was carried out by John Carter (1748-1817) [q. v.] While at Winchester he ardently pursued antiquarian studies, and on the recommendation of Richard Gough he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1790.
Between 1782 and 1791 various committees of English catholics (chiefly laymen) were formed for the purpose of promoting catholic emancipation [see under Butler, Charles, 1750-1832], but their members also wished to substitute a regular hierarchy in lieu of vicars-apostolic. At the same time they showed an impatience of the pretensions of their ecclesiastical leaders, and their attitude seemed to touch the authority of the papal see itself. To all claims on the part of laymen to interference in matters of religion Milner energetically opposed himself. When the Catholic Committee in 1791 pushed forward a proposed Bill for Catholic Relief, which embodied a form of the oath of allegiance already condemned by the three vicars-apostolic, Walmesley, Gibson, and Douglass, Milner acted as agent for the latter in their opposition to the measure, and visited Burke, Fox, Windham, Dundas, Pitt, Wilberforce, and other members of parliament, to urge the prelates' objections. His exertions were successful. The oath of the committee was rejected, and the Catholic Relief Act, which was passed on 7 June 1791, contained the Irish oath of 1788. But the ‘Catholic Committee,’ reorganised as the ‘Cisalpine Club’ in 1792, still carried on the old agitation, and was attacked by Milner. He thus grew to be regarded by his coreligionists as the champion of catholic orthodoxy. In his work entitled ‘Democracy Detected,’ he openly proclaimed his belief in the inerrancy of the holy see, and he frequently declared that he could not endure Gallican doctrines.
On the death of Dr. Gregory Stapleton, Pope Pius VII, by brief dated 1 March 1803, appointed Milner bishop of Castabala in partibus, and vicar-apostolic of the Midland district. He was consecrated at St. Peter's Chapel, Winchester, on 22 May 1803. After his consecration he went to Long Birch, a mansion on the Chillington estate that had been occupied by his episcopal predecessors, but in September 1804 he took up his residence permanently in the town of Wolverhampton.
Much work which was political as well as ecclesiastical fell to Milner's lot in those eventful times. The question whether the English government should have a ‘veto’ on the appointment of catholic bishops in the United Kingdom was then in agitation. In May 1808 the ‘Catholic Board’ was formed in England to carry on the agitation for catholic emancipation on the lines adopted by the Catholic Committee. Milner, who at first had been disposed to think that a royal veto might be accepted by catholics, afterwards became its uncompromising opponent. His attitude led to his expulsion from the Catholic Board and to his exclusion from a meeting of vicars-apostolic held at Durham in October 1813. Milner meanwhile enjoyed the full confidence of the Irish prelates, and acted as their agent in London, where he was permitted to reside when necessary under a papal dispensation, dated 11 April 1808. Milner twice visited Ireland in 1807–8. With the majority of the Irish prelates Milner now joined the party of catholics who were steadfastly opposed to any plan for Roman catholic emancipation which should recognise a right of veto in the English government. After the rejection of a bill introduced in 1813 for the settlement of the catholic question on the lines obnoxious to Milner and his friends, Sir John Coxe Hippisley [q. v.] procured from Monsignor Quarantotti, secretary of the propaganda, a rescript declaring ‘that the catholics ought to receive and embrace with content and gratitude the law proposed for their emancipation.’ This document, when published
