Posted 24 July 2009
Meeting with John Henry Newman’s Australian relative
While visiting Newman College at the University of Melbourne to deliver a paper on John Henry Newman’s Dublin Diary, Dr Padraic Conway, Director of the UCD International Centre for Newman Studies and UCD Vice-President for University Relations, met with Professor John Langford, the great grandson of Grace Langford, who was the last person to visit John Henry Newman before his death on 11 August 1890.
Grace Langford, born Mozley, was the daughter of Newman's sister Harriet, from whom he was permanently estranged from the time of his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1845.
According to Langford, he first became aware of his family connection to Cardinal Newman through a portrait of him that hung on the wall of his childhood home in Melbourne.
John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890) was University College Dublin’s founding rector in 1854. His Dublin Diary, which he kept continuously from November 1853 to March 1856, was first published in its entirety in Vol XXXII of the Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman in October 2008.
Dr Padraic Conway, Director of the UCD International Centre for Newman Studies and UCD Vice-President for University Relations with Professor John Langford at University of Melbourne
In his lecture, Dr Conway discussed how the Dublin Diary provides a new perspective on Newman’s time as Rector of the Catholic University, and how it must be taken into account in any attempt to assess the success or failure of Newman’s tenure as Rector.
Professor Langford is a distinguished academic in his own right. In 2003, he joined the University of Melbourne as director of the Melbourne Water Research Centre (MWRC) project after a career spanning more than three decades in the water industry. In 2007, under the Melbourne-Monash Protocol, the University of Melbourne and Monash University agreed to combine the Melbourne Water Research Centre with Monash Water under the directorship of Professor Langford; creating a joint initiative called “Uniwater”.
While at Melbourne, Dr Conway also presented a paper entitled “The Idea of a University: Classic or Period Piece?” at La Trobe University. Dr Katie Holmes, the incoming 2010 Keith Cameron Chair of Australian History at University College Dublin, chaired the seminar. It was also attended, inter alia, by Dr Stefan Auer, Senior Lecturer in history and politics at La Trobe University and the Deputy Director of the Innovative Universities European Union (IUEU) Centre, who lectured at UCD's Dublin European Institute from 2001-2006.
The lectures were delivered as part of a IRCHSS funded project: 'John Henry Newman: Global and Local Theologian'.
