(22 Jan. 1773-19 April 1837), clergyman. Born in London, Eng. Parents: Thomas Weld of Lulworth Castle, Dorset, and his wife Mary Stanley. The Welds belonged to that small group of wealthy and distinguished English landed families which had rejected the Reformation. These Roman Catholics were excluded from Parliament but were socially highly prestigious. They were in but were not not quite a part of the English ruling class; or perhaps more precisely, they were a part of the ruling class but, before Catholic Emancipation in 1829, their functions as a part of that class were disabled. Thomas Weld, the subject of the present article, showed great generosity to the French religious orders which took refuge in England from the French Revolution. At this time he and his father bestowed the Stonyhurst Mansion on the Jesuits. From this act developed one of England’s most famous schools, Stonyhurst College. Thomas Weld was married in 1796 to Lucy Bridget Clifford (d. 1815), granddaughter of the 3rd Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. The marriage produced one daughter, Mary Lucy (d. 1831), whose husband became the 7th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh.
After the death of his wife, Thomas Weld entered the priesthood, being ordained on 7 April 1821. At this time he renounced the family property in favour of his brother. On 24 April 1826 Fr Thomas Weld was appointed coadjutor, with the right of succession, to Bishop Alexander Macdonell, who had recently been made bishop of Kingston. For this purpose Fr Weld was consecrated 6 Aug. 1826 as titular bishop of Amycla with the right of succession to the diocese of Kingston. Fr Weld never came to Canada. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1830. He died at Rome. He has sometimes been called the Cardinal of the Seven Sacraments. W. J. Macdonell, who knew Bishop Macdonell, wrote that “The Presbytery and great Church of St. Raphael were built in anticipation of the arrival of Bishop Weld, but, although always fully intending to go to America, he closed his days at Rome…” J. A. Macdonell (Greenfield) copies this statement with a little expansion, saying “The Presbytery (abandoned in 1889 on the erection of the one built on the west side of the Church) and the present Church at St. Raphael’s were built in anticipation of the arrival of Bishop Weld, but although always fully intending to go to Canada, he closed his days at Rome…” In fact, however, the church at St. Raphael’s was begun around 1819, well before Thomas Weld was named coadjutor, but if he had come to Canada after his consecration in 1826, he would certainly have been at least a visitor at St. Raphael’s. Bishop Macdonell himself remained at St. Raphael’s for several years after becoming bishop of Kingston. John Galt hoped to persuade Fr Weld to settle at Guelph. Fr Weld assisted the church in Canada with gifts, and some of his furniture is in the Archbishop’s House in Kingston. In 1985, a miniature portrait, in colour, of Thomas Weld (not yet a priest) and his daughter, painted by Jean Baptiste Jacques Augustine in 1819, was sold at Sotheby’s for £35,200 to a Swiss private collector. D. A. Bellenger & S. Fletcher’s Princes of the Church: a History of the English Cardinals (2001) includes the reproduction of a most striking painting by G. Jones, R.A., of Weld being admitted to the Sacred College. Somewhat separated from the rest of the splendid assemblage, Weld’s daughter and her family watch.
Lives of Cardinal Weld in DNB and ODict * Flynn: index (portrait) * W. J. Macdonell, Reminiscences of the Late Hon. and Right Rev. Alexander Macdonell, First Catholic Bishop of Upper Canada (1888) 26 * J. A. Macdonell (Greenfield), A Sketch of the Life of the Honourable and Right Reverend Alexander Macdonell… First Catholic Bishop of Upper Canada (1890) 35 * MacGillivray & Ross 31, 27 * Sinnsearchd (1990 ) 169 * benefactions of Cardinal Weld mentioned in Seventh Report from the Select Committee of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada on Grievances (1835) pp. 31, 33 * John Galt, The Autobiography (1833), II, 115 * miniature: London Times 9 July 1985 (with reproduction); colour print of the miniature in present author’s files * entries for for Baron Clifford of Chudleigh in Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage Baronetage and Knightage (1970) and Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage (1995)