Edward Healy Thompson

He was educated at Oakham School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Having taken Anglican orders, he obtained a curacy at Calne, Wiltshire.

After some years of the Anglican ministry at Marylebone, Ramsgate, and elsewhere, he became a Catholic in 1846. The rest of his life, the latter years of which were spent at Cheltenham, he devoted to religious literature.

He published as his defence:

• "Remarks on certain Anglican Theories of Unity" (1846);
• "The Unity of the Episcopate considered" (1847); and
• "A few earnest thoughts on the Duty of Communion with the Catholic Church" (1847).

In 1851 jointly with James Spencer Northcote he undertook the editorship of the series of controversial pamphlets known as The Clifton Tracts. His chief works were:

• lives of M. Olier (1861), Marie Harpain (1869), St. Stanislaus Kostka (1869), Baron de Rentz (1873), and Henri-Marie Boudon (1881);
• "Devotion to the Nine Choirs of Holy Angels" (1869);
• "The Life and Glories of St. Joseph" (1888); and
• "Before and After Gunpowder Plot" (1890).

Most of this work was adaptation of books in other languages.

The poet Francis Thompson was his nephew.

He married Harriet Diana Calvert, daughter of Nicholson Calvert of Humsden, born at Humsden, Hertfordshire, 1811; died at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, 21 Aug., 1896. On her husband's conversion she also joined the Catholic Church, and like him devoted herself to literary work. Her chief work is the "Life of Charles Borromeo", but she also wrote stories of Catholic life. These include: "Mary, Star of the Sea" (1848); "The Witch of Malton Hill"; "Mount St. Lawrence" (1850); "Winefride Jones" (1854); "Margaret Danvers" (1857); "The Wyndham Family" (1876); and others, as well as articles in the Dublin Review.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Thompson". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
  • Joseph Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s. v.;
  • W. Gordon Gorman, Converts to Rome (London, 1910);
  • Gondon, Motifs de conversion de dix ministres anglicanes