Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Daniel, John
DANIEL, JOHN (1746–1823), the last president of the English college, Douay, was son of Edward Daniel of Durton, Lancashire. He received his education in a school at Fernyhalgh, and thence proceeded to Douay College, where he was ordained priest. From 1778 until the outbreak of the French revolution he taught philosophy and divinity in the college. When Edward Kitchen resigned the presidency in 1792 Daniel courageously accepted the post, and he and the senior professors and students were conveyed as prisoners, first to Arras, and next to the citadel of Dourlens, where they were detained till 27 Nov. 1794. Then they were all removed to the Irish college at Douay, and in the following year they obtained permission to return to England. Daniel joined the refugees from the English college, who had been collected at Crook Hall, near Durham, and was installed as president of the transplanted establishment, now Ushaw College. He retained, however, the title of president of Douay College, and took up his residence in the seminary of St. Gregory at Paris, in order to watch over the concerns of the suppressed college, and to prevent if possible the entire loss of the property belonging to it. After the peace of 1816 all British subjects who had lost property by the revolution claimed compensation from the French government, which eventually paid nearly 600,000l. to the English commissioners. The claims of the catholic religious establishments, however, were not admitted, although the money which had been transmitted for the purpose of compensating them for their losses was never returned to France. Sir James Mackintosh, one of the counsel retained by the catholic prelates, was disposed to bring the matter before the House of Commons, but it was feared that his doing so would injure the cause of catholic emancipation. Daniel died at Paris on 3 Oct. 1823.
He was the author of an ‘Ecclesiastical History of the Britons and Saxons,’ Lond. 1815, 8vo; new edit. Lond. 1824, 8vo.
[Catholic Magazine and Review, i. 14, 52, 89, 107, 137, 208, 268, 333, 397, 457, 683; Husenbeth's English Colleges on the Continent, p. 4; Gillow's Bibl. Dict. of the English Catholics, ii. 14, 15.]