Manchester, Rusholme, St. Edward the Confessor RC Church, Baptisms 1862-1908 (Download)

The information which is contained in this download is taken from the original registers, the originals of which are held by Lancashire Archives at Preston.

This download, which is in PDF format, contains a scanned copy of the original baptism registers complete with a transcript of the 1,047 baptisms performed and an index to the 4,716 names of children, parents and godparents which appear in the register.

St. Edward the Confessor RC Church, Rusholme; 1862-1908

Early in January 1862, Father Thomas Fox was sent to take charge of the new mission at Rusholme, which had just been opened. The church here was built by him, but it was not designed on a scale to cope with the great population that eventually surrounded it. In those days Rusholme was almost a rural area. Fr. Fox left Rusholme for Clayton-le-Moors in 1873 and Father Peter Vermeulen was Rector until 1876. In 1876 a young Dutch priest was appointed, Fr. Cornelius Vervoort. Unfortunately he was of indifferent bodily strength and died suddenly in 1879 at the early age of 38. The parish benefited from the long rectorship of Mgr. Thomas Croskell, who was here from 1879 to 1913. A well-known figure in the diocese, Monsignor Charles Canon Rothwell, was Rector until 1927. He rendered great service to the diocese by editing The Harvest, a task which he had undertaken in 1892 when Canon Moyes went with Bishop Vaughan to Westminster.

In more recent years the parish remembers the services of Fr. Arthur O'Connor and the late Vicar-General, Monsignor Robert McGuinness.

The parish has long been associated with the College of the Xaverian Brothers, whose property adjoins that of the church. The Xaverian Brothers form one of the many links between Salford Diocese and Belgium, especially Bruges Diocese.

The above description is based on information published in "Salford Diocese and its Catholic past", a survey by Charles A. Bolton, a Priest of the above Diocese. Published 1950 on the First Centenary for the Diocese of Salford.