BAINES, PETER AUGUSTINE. - Vicar Apostolic of the Western District of England, b. at Kirkby (Liverpool) on 25 June 1786, d. at Prior Park on 6 July 1843. In 1798 he moved to Hanover to complete his ecclesiastical studies at the Benedictine abbey of Lambspring. He remained there until 1803, the year in which the abbey was secularized and occupied by the Prussians. Having returned to his homeland with his confreres, he was given hospitality by Lady Anne Fairfax at Ampleforth, where the Benedictines of Lambspring founded the well-known college of St. Lawrence. In June 1804 B. took the habit of St. Benedict. Five years later he was ordained a priest. Because of his particular gifts as a preacher and controversialist, he was chosen in 1817 for the mission of Bath. In 1823 he became coadjutor to Bishop Collingridge, Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, and was consecrated titular bishop of Siga, in Mauritania. Having come to Rome in 1826, he preached with great success in the church of the Gesù and was particularly dear to Pope Leo XII, who appointed him his domestic prelate and assistant at the pontifical throne. On the death of Bishop Collingridge in 1829, B. returned to England and succeeded him in the vicariate of the Western District of England, which he held until his death. Cardinal Wiseman, on the basis of a very authoritative testimony, states that Bishop B. "was the person destined, in the intentions of Leo XII, to be the first English cardinal," but the sudden death of Pope Della Genga in 1829 annulled this plan.
Bibliography
Silvio Furlani