NORTHAMPTON, DIOCESE of. - City and diocese in England. It includes the counties of Bedford, Buckingham, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Norfolk, Northampton, and Suffolk. It has an area of 18,600 sq. miles, with a population of 2,033,185 inhabitants (1931 census), of whom, in 1950, 54,965 were Catholics, whereas in 1910 there had been only 13,308. In 1948 there were 443 conversions. It has 88 parishes, served by 122 diocesan and 72 regular priests; there are 15 male and 40 female communities.
The diocese was created in 1850 by Pius IX; it is suffragan to Westminster and has as its patrons Our Lady Immaculate and St Thomas of Canterbury.
The first bishop was William Wareing (1850-58), succeeded by Francis K. Amherst (1858-79), Arthur Riddell (1880-1907), Frederick W. Keating
(1908-21), Dudley Charles Cary-Elwes (1921-32), Laurence Youens (1933-39), and Thomas Leo Parker after 1941.
Within its boundaries the diocese contains many important historic places: Cambridge, Bury St Edmund's, a glorious abbey where the body of St Edmund, king and martyr, was venerated; Fotheringay, where Mary Stuart was killed; Wisbech, where priests were held prisoner during the persecution; Walsingam, a sanctuary and destination of pilgrimages, second only to Loreto, of which it was a copy; Franslingham Castle, from which Mary the Catholic in 1551 marched against the rebel heretics. It also gave the Church illustrious martyrs, among them the blessed: Everard Hanse (1581), John Payne (1582), Robert Southwel (1595), Henry Morse (1645), etc., and the venerables Richard Drury (1607), Henry Heat (1643), etc.
NORTH BAY:
V. S. TE MARIE NEL CANADÀ.