Pastoral Research Centre Trust
Stone House
Hele
Taunton
Somerset TA4 1AJ
England
Tel: 01823 461669
Fax: 01823 461097
Email:
The PRC is one of the two successors to the NDS - the other being the CEC - when the NDS was closed down on 28 February, 1964. It took to Cavendish Square College all the NDS library, archives and databank that were not taken over by the CEC. With it came Spencer, Dr Daniel Woolgar OP, three salaried members of staff and two volunteers working with Woolgar. The enterprise, ‘owned’ by Spencer, eventually got the name of the Pastoral Research Centre.
Until he was elected Prior of Haverstock Hill, Woolgar continued work on the 1961 Census of Clergy and Religious, assisted by a Vocation Sister, who worked on the data about women religious. A Preliminary Report on the Census had been circulated by the NDS, followed by a volume on the secular clergy of the 17 dioceses that had cooperated.. Woolgar and his assistants had already prepared another 29 major reports on the Census at the NDS but none of these had been typed or duplicated for distribution. The main focus of his work at the PRC was on women religious, but it all stopped after Woolgar’s election.
The NDS was founded as an internal agency of the Newman Association (NA), the Catholic organisation for graduates and professional men and women, in October, 1953, at the suggestion of Anthony Spencer, at the time Hon. Secretary, London Newman Circle. It got off the ground very quickly and soon had a Directing Committee of social science academics and professionals, headed by Colin Clark (Director of the Oxford Institute of Agricultural Economics) as Chairman, Eileen Brooke (morbidity statistician at the General Register Office) as Vice-Chairman, Ronald Barley (Treasurer and Chief Examiner, Institute of Actuaries) and others, with Spencer as Hon. Secretary. Six months later it received the approval of the Catholic Hierarchy, and within a year had c.100 working around the country on a voluntary basis on a variety of projects. The initial emphasis was on the exploration and assessment of sources of sociographic and demographic data about the Catholic community, aimed at estimating the size of the Catholic population and its structure in terms of age, gender and birthplace at the start of January, 1955. Before this work, led by Spencer, could be completed – in October, 1955, another, much simpler study, of Catholic population in June, 1952, by age group, was completed by John Archer, an actuary working for Unilever pensions.
Dr Clive D. Field OBE
Honorary Research Fellow in the School of History and Cultures, University of Birmingham and Institute for Social Change, University of Manchester. Professional career was in academic libraries, including as Director of Scholarship and Collections at The British Library, 2001-6. Has researched and published extensively in the field of the social history of religion in Britain from 1689 to the present day, with particular reference to statistical sources. Is Co-Director of the British Religion in Numbers website and writes prodigiously for its blog. Has many interests in and links with archive and library collections, including as President of the Religious Archives Group and as a member of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Council on National Records and Archives. For further information, see his entry in Who’s Who.
Mrs Christine Purcell, MTheol, MA, M.Litt., MCLIP, FHEA
Originally from Edinburgh, Christine studied at St Andrewws Univ4ersity, taking an M. Theol. honours degree in 1976. She studied for MA in Librarianship at Sheffdield University, and has spent most of her career in Durham University, where she is Academic Liaison Librarian, liaising (among others) the Department of Theology and Religion, and the School of Education. In 2009 she graduated again from St Andrews University with an MLitt from the distancde learning programme The Bible in the Contemporary World. Her dissertation was on Marian hymns.
In Durham, she is a member of the Catholic Theology Research Seminar, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Catholic Studies. She is a governor in a small Catholic primary school. Her husband Vincent is a permement deacon of the Diocese of Hexham & Newcastle, and they have three grown-up children.
Mr Anthony E.C.W. Spencer
b.1928. B.Sc (Econ), Southampton, 1948. Security analyst, investment bank, 1951-3. HM Inspector of Taxes, 1953-9. Founded NDS, 1953, PRC, 1964. Senior Lecturer, Cavendish Square Graduate College, 1964-9. Twice President, International Conference on Religious Sociology. Board member, FERES (International Federation of Institutes of Social and Socio-Religious Research), 1960-9. Lecturer/Senior, Lecturer, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1970-87. Prepared report that led to the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act, New Zealand, 1975. Member, Belfast Education & Library Board, 1973-85, and twice Chairman of its Education Committee. First Chairman, Sociological Association of Ireland. Drafted what became the Education (Northern Ireland) Act, 1978. Co-founded Lagan College, 1981. Founded the Belfast Trust for Integrated Education, 1984, which established two new integrated schools in 1985. Co-founded, N.I. Council for Integrated Education, which now supports c.70 schools. Moved the PRC back to England, 2000. Married, five adult children.
Rev. Dr James Sweeney CP
Vice-Principal, Heythrop College.
Rev. George Towler
After studying for the priesthood at Wonersh, George Towler was ordained on the 16th June 1962. For two years he was a curate in Chelmsford, and when Bishop Patrick Wall asked him to take up hisState Scholarship, he went to the London School of Economics, ansd received a B.Sc (Econ) degree sdpecialising in Criminology anbd the Sociology of Religion. On returning to Chelmsforf he became prison Chap-lain at Chelmsford Prison. As a result of his frtirndship with Canon Francis Houtart he was invited to lecture at the Summer School in Louvain on the Sociology of Religion. It was there met Tom Burns, the then Chairman of Burns & Oates who later became editor at The Tablet and Tom invited him to join The Tablet editorial staff. He worked there for two years and subsequently became a teacher at St. Cedd's Comprehensive School, in Thurrock. He enjoyed twelve happy years at St. Cedd's until the school closed, and then bishop McMahon of Brentwood asked him to go as Parish Priest to Banbury and South Woodham Ferrers. After eight years there he went on Our Lady of Good Counsel, Wickford as Parish Priest for a further five years. He retired from active ministry in 2002 for health reasons, but continues to help out as a Priest in the Diocese.
Works Published The Brentwood Survey
The Nottingham Consultation
The Bishop, a Crisis of Identity
The work of the NDS obliged it to maintain a filing system, to collect and store data, and to gather directories and other reference books. By the time the NDS was closed down in 1964 all three elements – archives, databank and library – were occupying considerable space. Parts of all three were taken over by the Catholic Education Council in March, 1964. The remainder went with Spencer to Cavendish Square Graduate College, and were the foundation of the PRC archives, databank and library.
Very large additions were made between 1964 and 1969, particularly those connected with the PRC’s element in the ‘ISS-FERES Project’, a research programme funded by the Ford Foundation. By 1970, when the PRC moved to Belfast, there were – in addition to the collection inherited from the NDS – four new sub-collections, each having library, archival and databank elements: the main PRC sub-collection, the Third World Collection, the New Zealand Collection, and the Scottish.
While the PRC was in Northern Ireland additions were made to all three elements of the Newman Collection, and a completely new sub-collection was accumulated, on the development of integrated education in N. Ireland.
With the Newman Collection back in England in 2000, and the Trust established in 2007, the Trustees gave much attention to providing for its future use by socio-religious researchers. Negotiations led by one of the Trustees, Dr Clive Field, led in 2011 to the signature of an agreement with Durham University, the home of the Centre for Catholic Studies, providing for the transfer of most of the core collection to Durham University on the death or earlier incapacity of Spencer.
Agreement in principle was long ago reached with the Curator of the Alexander Turnbull Collection, associated with the New Zealand National Archives, for the New Zealand sub-collection (on the organisation of Catholic education in New Zealand) to be sent eventually to Wellington. A similar agreement has been made with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland for the deposit of the integrated education sub-collection. Due to the reorganisation of the Scottish Catholic Archives the Scottish sub-collection will eventually go with the main Newman Collection to Durham University.
The one remaining sub-collection, on the education, health and social action work of Christian church-related agencies in the Third World, has still to be found a permanent home. Failing that it will be destroyed on Spencer’s death.
Arrangements have yet to be made to dispose of monographs, journal runs and reference books which will duplicate Durham University Library holdings. In principle, these will either be sold or given to universities, colleges and publicly owned libraries.
Anthony Spencer