George Cornelius Gorham (1787–1857) was a priest in the Church of England. His legal recourse to being denied a certain post, decided subsequently by a secular court, caused great controversy.
He was ordained as a deacon on 10 March 1811,[2] despite the misgivings of the Bishop of Ely, Thomas Dampier, who found Gorham's opinions at odds with Anglicandoctrine.[3] Gorham's views on baptism had caused comment, particularly his contention that by baptism infants do not become members of Christ and the children of God.[4] After being ordained as a priest on 23 February 1812[2] and serving as a curate in several parishes, he was instituted as vicar of St Just in Penwith by Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, in 1846.[5]
Gorham then appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which caused great controversy about whether a secular court should decide the doctrine of the Church of England.[10] The ecclesiastical lawyer Edward Lowth Badeley, a member of the Oxford Movement, appeared before the committee to argue the bishop's cause, but the committee (Knight Bruce, V-C dissenting)[11][12] eventually reversed the bishop's and the Arches' decision on 9 March 1850 and granted Gorham his institution.[13]
Phillpotts repudiated the judgment and threatened to excommunicate the archbishop of Canterbury and anyone who dared to institute Gorham.[14] Fourteen prominent Anglicans, including Henry Edward Manning, requested that the Church of England repudiate the opinion that the Privy Council had expressed concerning baptism.[15] As there was not any response from the Church apart from Phillpotts' protestations, they quit the Church of England and joined the Catholic Church.
Subsequent life
Gorham himself spent the rest of his life at his post in Brampford Speke. As vicar, Gorham restored the church building, entirely rebuilding the tower, for which Phillpotts gave some money. He was an antiquary and botanist of some reputation, as well as the author of a number of pamphlets.[16] He died on 19 June 1857 in Brampford Speke.[17]
^Brodrick, George C.; Fremantle, William H., eds. (1865). A Collection of the Judgments of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Ecclesiastical Cases Relating to Doctrine and Discipline. p. 64, at p.105.
Eckel, E. H. (1952). "Review of Gorham and the Bishop of Exeter by J. C. S. Nias". Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 21 (2): 276–277. ISSN0018-2486. JSTOR42972116.
Jordan, Andrew (1998). "George Cornelius Gorham, Clerk v Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter: A Case of Anglican Anxieties". Ecclesiastical Law Journal. 5 (23): 104–111. doi:10.1017/S0956618X00000065. ISSN0956-618X. S2CID144324453.
