William Joseph Petre, 13th Baron Petre (26 February 1847 – 8 May 1893) was an English nobleman and priest (

Monsignor Monsignor (; it, monsignore ) is an honorific form of address or title for certain male clergy members, usually members of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" ca ...

) of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Family

Petre was the eldest son of

William Bernard Petre, 12th Baron Petre William Bernard, 12th Baron Petre (20 December 1817 – 4 July 1884) "a pattern of charity and piety", was an enthusiastic builder of churches. To a greater or lesser extent, he was responsible for new churches in Brentwood, Chipping Ongar, Bark ...

and Mary Theresa Clifford (1823–1895). His maternal grandparents were Charles Thomas Clifford and Theresa Constable-Maxwell. Theresa was a daughter of

Charles Clifford, 6th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, of Chudleigh in the County of Devon, is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1672 for Thomas Clifford. The title was created as "Clifford of Chudleigh" rather than simply "Clifford" to differentiat ...

and Eleanor Mary Arundell. Eleanor was a daughter of

Henry Arundell, 8th Baron Arundell of Wardour Henry Arundell, 8th Baron Arundell of Wardour (31 March 1740 – 4 December 1808) was a British nobleman in the 18th century. He married Mary Christina Conquest, in 1763. Biography Henry Arundell was born on 31 March 1740, to Henry Arundell ...

and his wife Mary Christina Conquest.

Priesthood

Petre began studying for the priesthood in 1872, was ordained in 1874, and taught for several years at

Downside Abbey Downside Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in England and the senior community of the English Benedictine Congregation. Until 2019, the community had close links with Downside School, for the education of children aged eleven to eighteen. Both ...

. During his time there, Petre endowed the school with a library (from which the works of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

were banned) a cloister and a swimming pool. Petre eventually found conventional Catholic education narrow and stultifying and resolved to open his own school. Petre was in Holy Orders and Domestic Prelate to the Court of the

Holy See The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...

. He wrote several

polemical Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

pamphlets on the problem of Catholic Liberal Education; one pamphlet is highly critical of

Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera ' ...

, whose music Petre claimed was intended "merely to satisfy the cravings of sensibilities fuddled by brandy and soda water".

Woburn Park

Largely from the sale of the family library, in the summer of 1877 he purchased Woburn Park, home of the wealthy Southcote family, of mostly deer park-style landscape fronting briefly the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

, in

Addlestone Addlestone ( or ) is a town in Surrey, England. It is located approximately southwest of London. The town is the administrative centre of the Runnymede (borough), Borough of Runnymede, of which it is the largest settlement. History The town is ...

, Surrey, England and containing a commanding knoll above the end of the combined Bourne, a deep stream and its confluence. The wide knoll is Woburn Hill where Philip Southcote turned its farmhouse into a mansion in the early 18th century. In Woburn Park, Petre began a Catholic boarding school with a half-dozen boys. It was deliberately unconventional: it had few explicit rules and a Parliament at which the school's administration was freely debated by the pupils. These debates were recorded in the school magazine, ''The Amoeba''. Pupils dressed for dinner every night and special mention is made of the school's "constant hot water". The school grew and its ceremonial mace, made in 1881, displayed in the Stone Hall comes from the "parliament". Lord Petre, wearing sumptuous robes, acted as Speaker as the boys, sitting as members for imaginary constituencies such as

Chilcompton Chilcompton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated in the Mendip Hills two miles south of Midsomer Norton and 3.0 miles south-west of Westfield. It is situated on the B3139 road between Radstock and Wells, close to the A ...

, Gurney Slade and

Radstock Radstock is a town and civil parish on the northern slope of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England, about south-west of Bath and north-west of Frome. It is within the area of the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset. The Radstoc ...

, debated "bills" in precise imitation of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

. In

Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk Sir Rupert Iain Kay Moncreiffe of that Ilk, 11th Baronet (9 April 1919 – 27 February 1985), Chief of Clan Moncreiffe, was a British Officer of Arms and genealogist. Biography Moncreiffe was the son of Lieutenant-Commander Gerald Moncreif ...

's "Essex" a passage reads: "A late lord Petre was himself a priest, who took a special interest in education, and carried on a lordly school at Woburn Hill, once renowned as a

ferme ornée The term ''ferme ornée'' as used in English garden history derives from Stephen Switzer's term for 'ornamental farm'. It describes a country estate laid out partly according to aesthetic principles and partly for farming. During the eighteenth ce ...

, between Weybridge and Chertsey". The first incarnation of the school failed financially after a few years in midsummer 1884. The accidental death by drowning of Fotheringham, a senior boy staying at the site in the holidays, dented the confidence of prospective parents. In 1884, Petre sold the premises to the Josephites for their St George's College.King, R.W., "The Ferme Ornée, Philip Southcote and Wooburn Farm", ''Journal of the Garden History Society'', 1974

Hiatus

From a Catholic publication at the time:

Baron

Five weeks later, on 4 July 1884, William's father died and he succeeded to the title as 13th Baron Petre of Writtle. That same year saw the beginning of Petre's new school at Northwood Park on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

, however, Northwood closed about a year later. Lord Petre then retired to The Hyde in

Ingatestone Ingatestone is a village and former civil parish in Essex, England, with a population of 5,365 inhabitants according to the 2011 census. Just north lies the village of Fryerning, the two forming now the parish of Ingatestone and Fryerning. In ...

, Essex; also, in 1885 the

Duchy of Lancaster The Duchy of Lancaster is the private estate of the British sovereign as Duke of Lancaster. The principal purpose of the estate is to provide a source of independent income to the sovereign. The estate consists of a portfolio of lands, properti ...

granted him the Liberty of Clare and the Manor of Arnolds. Eight years later, he died at the early age of 46, his health apparently undermined by the strain of attempting to establish a new type of education for Catholic youth. He was a man of simple tastes and all who knew him spoke well of him. He was kind to his tenants, to the poor and especially to the young.

References

External links

His profile in Peerage.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Petre, William Petre, 13th Baron 1847 births 1893 deaths

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

Ordained peers 19th-century English Roman Catholic priests 13