Regular readers may recall that, on my first day in post as President of Trinity last November, our nineteenth-century alumnus John Henry Newman, already a Saint, was proclaimed a ‘Doctor of the Church’ by Pope Leo XIV, a title given to those who have made a major contribution to theology or doctrine through their research, study or writing. Newman came to Trinity as an undergraduate in 1817 and lived in Garden Quad. Despite fluffing his final exams, he was then elected to a Fellowship at Oriel and became Vicar of the University Church. Newman was a leading member of the Oxford Movement, urging the Church of England to rediscover its pre-Reformation roots, before causing great controversy by becoming a Roman Catholic in 1845 and a Cardinal in 1879.

Other items on display included Newman’s entry in the Admissions Register, his family Bible, and the record of his election as Trinity’s first Honorary Fellow in 1877. He saw the last of these as a gesture of reconciliation between Oxford and the Catholic Church. The following February, he visited Oxford for the first time in over thirty years, dining in Hall and meeting dignitaries at a reception in the Lodgings. On 1 March, he wrote to the then President, Samuel Wayte, to express his thanks. Wayte made a copy, which we had on display. It concludes with a prayer “that Trinity College and all who belong to it may grow and abound in the best of gifts, and be endowed with the choicest of blessings.”

The most precious exhibit was the silver-gilt chalice and paten from which Newman took his first communion in November 1817. These beautiful items were given to Trinity by our Founder, Sir Thomas Pope, in 1555, and somehow survived the religious vicissitudes of the following decades. Hallmarked 1527, they are engraved with a verse from Psalm 116: calicem salutaris accipiam et nomen Domini invocabo (“I will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord”). This communion set is of great historical value and carefully guarded, but I hope that from time to time we can put it to the use for which it was originally intended in the liturgical life of the Chapel.