THE REGISTERS AND MANUSCRIPTS OF GOSPORT 1759-1852 TRANSCRIBED AND EDITED BY CANON R. E. SCANTLEBURY HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
Gosport lies on the west side of Portsmouth Harbour, facing Portsmouth. In 1813 it was described as " a market town in the parish of Alverstoke, Hants, . . . . 5 miles from Fareham and 78 miles from London . containing 1,863 houses and 11,295 inhabitants (viz. 4,753 males and 6,542 females) of whom 1,724 were returned as being employed in various trades . This is a place of great trade and business, but more particularly so in time of war, from the number of docks here for the king's service. Here is likewise a large iron-foundery, in which various articles are cast for the use of the navy. A little to the south of this town, nearer the sea, is that noble building, Haslar hospital, for the cure of the sick and wounded seamen in his Majesty's service . has a strong fort , with a platform well mounted with cannon, to It defend the Channel .. ( Benjamin Pitts Capper, A Topographical Dictionary of the United Kingdom , London, 1813 ). It is quite possible, as already recorded in the Winchester Introduction, that the first priest of whom there is any trace in Gosport was one of her own sons, the Rev. Robert Berry. In English Catholic Nonjurors (p . 239) Robert Berry of Gosport is returned as the owner of a freehold house at Forton, called the " Ship on Wheels ," and valued at £9 15s . The editors ( Estcourt and Payne ) suggest that this may be Robert Berry, son of Henry Berry and Elizabeth Townsend , of Hampshire, who was born in 1685 or 1686 , entered the English College, Rome , in 1705, and was ordained in 1711 ( Foley, Records S.J. , vi, 456 ; C.R.S. , xl, 136) , but of whom nothing else is known until he appears in Winchester in 1721 . The Gosport Mission is an offshootof Brockhampton. The Registers were opened on 6 May 1759 , by the Rev. Philip Wyndham. Hitherto was uncertain whether Philip Wyndham lived at Brockhampton and served Gosport from there, or vice versa . Bishop Hoadley's letter of 22 May 1759 (published with the Introduction to Brockhampton Registers ) definitely states that Philip Wyndham lived at Havant. For four years he made himself responsible also for the GosportCatholics , during which time he recorded twenty baptisms , from May 1759 to April 1763. In September 1763 the Rev. James Nolan (see Winchester Introduction ) was given charge of Gosport . He remained until June 1766, when he was appointed to Winchester. The Ledger of the HampshireClergy Fund shows that he was sent to Gosport by Bishop James Talbot, Coadjutor to Bishop Challoner , Vicar Apostolic of the London District, and that he received for his work here £5 a year from the Rev. John Philip Betts, Treasurer of the Hampshire Fund. In his accounts Betts notes his payment to Mr. Nolan as being for attendance near Portsmouth, and it is only in the last entry, in August " 1766, that he specifies the Mission as Gosport ( see Hants . Ledger,
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