John Henry Newman was born in London. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford, from 1817 and in 1822 was elected a Fellow of Oriel. He was ordained in 1824. Newman broke with Evangelicalism in 1830, and became involved in the Tractarian movement, composing a number of the Tracts for the times . His Tract XC provoked a storm which ended the movement and brought on the conversion to Catholicism of many Tractarians. In October 1845 Newman was received into the Roman Catholic Church and shortly after he went to Rome for a year and a half. On his return to England in 1848 he established a branch of the brotherhood of St. Philip Neri at Edgbaston, Birmingham. In 1879, he was summoned to Rome to be appointed Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. His other publications included The Arians of the fourth century (1833), lectures on Anglican difficulties (1850), lectures on Catholicism in England (1851), the poem The dream of Gerontius, and his philosophy of faith Grammar of assent (1870). Cardinal John Henry Newman died in Edgbaston on 11 August 1890.
From the guide to the Correspondence relating to Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), 1881-1960, (Edinburgh University Library)
