John Sergeant (priest)

John Sergeant was born at Barrow upon Humber, Lincolnshire, in 1623, and died in 1707 or 1710. He was son of William Sergeant, a yeoman, and was educated as a sub-sizar at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1642 or 1643. He was appointed secretary to Thomas Morton, the Anglican Bishop of Durham, but converted to Catholicism as result of his further studies.

He subsequently moved to the English College in Lisbon. He studied theology and in 1650 was ordained as a Catholic priest. He subsequently taught at the college until 1652, when he became procurator and prefect of studies. From 1653 to 1654, he worked as a priest in England before returning to Lisbon where he resumed his earlier work and taught philosophy. In 1655 he was elected canon and appointed as secretary.

For the next twenty years he was actively engaged in controversy with both Anglicans and Catholics.

At the time of the Oates Plot he entered into communication with the Privy Council which greatly scandalized the Catholics. This arose from his opposition to Jesuit influence in the English Catholic Church.

He avoided arrest by passing as a physician under the names of Dodd, Holland, and Smith. He was reportedly difficult to work with, saying and writing many things that offended even his co-religionists. He was a voluminous writer, leaving over fifty works, either published or in manuscript.

There is an original painting of him at Ushaw College, in Durham.

References

* "John Sergeant And His Circle - A Study Of Three Seventeenth Century English Aristotelians" by Dorothea Crook (EJ Brill 1993) - describes his work and philosophy.

* "House of Commons Journal Volume 9 26 March 1681" http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=27865

* Catholic Encyclopaedia On Line http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13727a.htm