John Milner (bishop)

The Right Reverend John Milner D.D.
Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District
Church	Roman Catholic Church
Appointed	6 March 1803
Term ended	19 April 1826
Predecessor	Gregory Stapleton
Successor	Thomas Walsh
Other posts	Titular Bishop of Castabala
Orders
Ordination	21 December 1776
Consecration	22 May 1803 by John Douglass
Personal details
Born	14 October 1752 Holborn, London
Died	19 April 1826 (aged 73) Wolverhampton
Buried	St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, Wolverhampton
Nationality	British
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Parents	Joseph and Helen Miller or Milner

John Milner (1752–1826) was an English Roman Catholic bishop and controversialist who served as the Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District from 1803 to 1826.

At the age of twelve he was sent to Sedgley Park School, but the following year, on the recommendation of Bishop Richard Challoner, he was sent to the English College at Douai, France, to study for the priesthood. He remained there twelve years. Upon his ordination to the priesthood in 1777 he returned to England and, at first, resided in London, in Gray's Inn, having no permanent appointment, but being what was familiarly called among the Catholic clergy of that time "a jobber", serving as a supply priest when and where required.

Two years later he was sent to Winchester to replace the Catholic missioner, Rev. Mr. Nolan, who had died of a malignant fever while ministering to the hundreds of French Catholic prisoners of war then confined in the city gaol.

Winchester was then one of the few towns in the south of England where a Catholic chapel had been openly supported since the latter part of the 17th century. The saying of Mass there was technically illegal, for the penal laws prohibiting the saying of Mass were not repealed until the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 ; but practically there was not much prospect of Catholics being interfered with. The facilities at Winchester, however, were quite inconvenient and insecure, Masses being celebrated either in the priest's house (called "St. Peter's House") or in a kind of shed at the end of the garden behind it. Under Milner's guidance, the decision was taken to build a Catholic chapel in the "light gothic style" at a time when most ecclesiastical architecture in England was neo-classical, and when Catholic chapels rarely aspired to any style at all. In Milner's own words  :-

This measure being resolved upon, instead of the following the modern style of building churches and chapels, which are in general square chambers, with small sash windows and fashionable decorations, hardly to be distinguished, when the altars and benches are removed, from common assembly rooms ; it was concluded upon to imitate the models in this kind, which have been left us by our religious ancestors, who applied themselves with such ardor and unrivalled success to the cultivation and perfection of ecclesiastical architecture. [History of Winchester, P. II. ch. xii]

...
Wikipedia