George Errington

Who was George Errington?

George Errington, the second son of Thomas Errington and Katherine of Clints Hall, Richmond, Yorkshire, was a Roman Catholic churchman.

He was consecrated first Bishop of Plymouth on 25 July 1851, having previously been rector of the church of St. John the Evangelist in Salford. He was a boyhood friend of Nicholas Wiseman, who became Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster in 1850.

In 1855 while Wiseman applied for a coadjutor, Errington was appointed, with the title of Archbishop of Trebizond in partibus. Two years later, Henry Edward Manning was appointed Provost of Westminster and he established in Bayswater his community of the Oblates of St Charles. Errington showed conscientious, but implacable hostility to Manning, and embraced in this even Wiseman, in so far as he was supposed to be acting under Manning's influence. The estrangement was largely a matter of temperament. However it was grave enough for Errington to be deprived by Pope Pius IX of his coadjutorship with right of succession in July 1860, and he retired to Prior Park, near Bath, where he died a full generation later, on 19 January 1884.

In August 1856, Dr Errington founded St Boniface's Catholic College, Plymouth.