WILTON
647
WILTON
many other difficulties, Bishop Becker increased the
number of churches to twenty-six and the clcrgj' to
twenty-one. He brought to the diocese the Bene-
dictine Fathers, the Sisters of St. Francis (Glen Riddle,
Pa.), and the Sisters of the Visitation. He also founded
an orphan asylum for boys. During his episcopate
the Catholic population increased to about 18,000.
In 1SS6 Bishop Becker was transferred to Savan- nah, Georgia, and was succeeded by Rev. Alfred A. Curtis, at that time chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Bishop Curtis was born on 4 July, 1S31, in Somerset Co., Maryland, and was therefore a native of the diocese. He was reared as an Episco- palian, and was ordained to the ministry of that church. As such he was stationed a short time at Chestertown, Kent Co., Maryland, in his future dio- cese. In 1872 he visited England, where he was received into the Church by Cardinal Newman. Returning he entered St. Mary's Seminary, Balti- more, where he was ordained by Archbishop Bayley, 19 Dec, 1874. He w.as consecrated Bishop of Wil- mington on 14 Nov., 1886. To pay off numerous debts contracted in the rapid extension of the diocese by his predecessor and to provide labourers and means to continue the work was a task that called for unusual zeal and energy. Yet so well did he fulfil it that in the ten years of his episcopate the number of churches was increased by thirteen and the clergy by eight. He established a mission for coloured people, placing the Josephite Fathers in charge. He also brought to the diocese the Benedictine and the Ursuline Sisters. One of his chief works is the Visitation Monastery, which he built and had endowed in order that the sisters might become exclusively contemplative according to the primitive rule of their order. He died on 14 July, 1908, and, at his own request his remains were buried within the enclosure of this mon.astery. In 189ti Bishop Curtis resigned, leaving the diocese with .39 churches served by 29 priests, and with four communities of teaching sisters, 1 contemplative community, 3 orphanages, an industrial school, and a Cathohc [lopulation of 25,000.
The third and present bishop is the Rt. Rev. John J. Monaghan. He was born 23 May, lS.")f), .at Sumter, South Carolina, and educated at St. Charles College, EUicott City, Maryland, and St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore. He was ordained on 19 Dec, 1880, and served at various posts in the Diocese of Charleston until his appointment as bishop. He was consecrated at St. Peter's Pro-Cathedral on 9 May, 1897. Under his administration the growth of the diocese has con- tinued. Among the most notable of his acts are the introduction of the Oblate Fathers of St. Francis de Sales (1903) and of the Little Sisters of the Poor (1903). The former conduct a day college for boys, while the latter care for the aged poor. The churches already in existence have been remodelled, new build- ings provided for the orphans, four new churches added in the country and two in the city, a residence for the bishop was purchased, and all placed on a pros- perous footing during this administration. The growth of the diocese continues, not with the .strides of those dioceses where immigration is large, but , if slowly, yet surely. Over eighty per cent of the Catholic population is in Wilmington and its neighbourhood. The foreign elements are found here almost exclu- sively. The parochial schools, with a .single excep- tion, are in or around the city. The remainder of the diocese is still a mi,s.sionary district, the Catholics are few and scattered, and some churches are visited only once a month. In the whole diocese the Catholics form less than nine per cent of the population.
Statistics (1911): diocesan priests 38; religious 18; churches with resident priests 27 ; mission churches 21 ; chapels .5; stations 14; academies 2; college 1; paro- chial schools 13, with 3900 pupils; orphan asylums
256; industrial school for coloured boys 1, with 60
inmates; religious communities of men 3; communi-
ties of women 7; Catholic population 35,0()0.
Archives of the Diocese of Wilminoton; Archives of the Maryland Province S. J.; J0HN8TONE, Hisl. of Cecil Co., Md. (Elkton, Md., 1881); CONBAD, Hist, of Delaware (Wilmington, 1908).
James L. McSweeny.
Wilton, Richard, d. 21 Dec, 1239. He was a medieval scholar of whom little is known except that he was an Englishman who joined the Trinitarians. His works included a commentary on the " Sentences" of Peter Lombard, a treatise in five books against the heresies of his own age, commentaries on Genesis and the prophecy of Jcreniias, three books of Quodli- bets, a treatise on the immortahty of the soul, and four books on Divine grace. All current information is derived from the statements of Oldoinus in his "Athenxum Romanum", published at Perugia in 1676; but the facts given will not bear examination. Thus it is said that he was nominated Archbishop of Armagh by Innocent III; but he certainly never became archbishop. He is said to have been created cardinal by Gregory IX with the title of St. Stephen on the Cielian Hill, but his name is not found in the lists of canliii:ils ((niiiiiled by de Mas Latrie, or the more receiil rrsiMiclirs of Conrad Eubel. The addi- tional stati'inciit I hal lie was a doctor of Oxford, Cam- bridge, and Paris is intrinsically impossible, at least so far as Cambridge is concerned.
Oldoinus, Athenirum Romanvm (Perugia, 1676); Lelong, Bibliolheca Sacra (Paris, 172.3), giving the date of hia death as 1439; Fabbicius, Bib. Med. JSt.. VI (Hamburg. 1746). giving date of his death as 13.39, by an ob\nou3 misprint; Hubteh. No- menclalor Litcrarius (Innsbruck, 1899).
Edwin Burton.
Wilton Abbey, a Benedictine convent in \\ilt shire, England, three miles from Salisbury. A first founda- tion was made as a college of secular priests by Earl Wulstan of Wiltshire, about 773, but was after his death (800) changed into a convent for 12 nuns by his widow, St. Alburga, sister of King Egbert. Owing to the con.sent given by this king he is usually counted as the first founder of this monastery. St. Alburga herself joined the community, and died at Wilton. King Alfred, after his temporary success against the Danes at Wilton in 871, founded anew convent on the site of the royal palace and vmited to it the older foundation. The community was to number 26 nuns. Wilton is best known as the home of St. Edith, the child of a "handfast" union between Edgar, King of the English (944-75), and Wulfrid, a lady wearing the veil though not a nun, whom he carried off from Wil- ton probably in 961. After Edith's birth, Wulfrid refused to enter into a permanent marriage with Edgar and retired with her child to Wihon. Edith, who appears to have been learned, received the veil while a child, at the hands of Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester, and at the age of fifteen refused the abbacy of three houses offered by her father. She built the Church of St. Denis at AA'ilton, which was consecrated by St. Dunstan. and died shortly after- wards at the age of twenty-three (984). Her feast is on 16 September. St. Edith became the chief (latron of Wilton, and is sometimes said to have been abbess. In 1003 Sweyn, King of Denniiirk, destroyed the town of Wilton, but we do not know' whether the mon.astery shared its fate. Edith, thewifeof Edward the Confessor, who had been educated at Wilton, re- built in stone the monastery which had formerly been of wood. In 1143 King Stephen made it his head- quarters, but was put to flight by Matilda's forces under Robert of Gloucester. The Abbess of Wilton held an entire barony from the king, a privilege shared by only three other English nunneries, Shaftesbury, Barking, and St. Mary, Winchester. Cecily Bodenham, the last abbess, surrendered her convent on 25 March, 1539. The site was granted to Sir William Herbert, afterwards Earl
