HomeAbout George Goldie,

About George Goldie,

George Goldie was born in York, United Kingdom, on June 9th, 1828 and died in Saint Servan, Brittany, on March 1st, 1887.

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Goldie was, what was termed in the nineteenth-century, a ‘cradle Catholic’, that is, he was born into that faith rather than being a convert from Anglicanism. George’s father was the son of George Sharpe Goldie and Sophia Osborne. George Sharpe Goldie predeceased Sophia and Sophia at this point went to Rouen and converted to Catholicism. George’s father, also George, was a medical doctor who was active in the Catholic Emancipation movement and would marry Mary Anne in 1828, a Catholic and daughter of Joseph Bonomi. Joseph Bonomi was an Italian who also had a son, Ignatius, who would also become an architect. George had eight siblings of whom three died at a young age and of those that lived Charles became an artist, Edward would become a Monsignor and Canon of Leeds, Francis became a Jesuit priest and writer, Mary became a nun who resided at St. Mary’s Convent, York as Mother Mary Walburga and Catherine who also became a nun in the same convent and adopted the name Mary but died at the age of twenty-eight. Given this background it seems natural that if George was to become an architect that he would also have a desire to practice his craft in the design of Roman Catholic edifices. Pope Pius IX awarded him the Cross and Order of St. Sylvester in 1877 for his work ‘as a Catholic architect.’ His father’s activities in support of Catholic Emancipation would almost certainly have endeared him to the Catholic Church in Ireland and aided him in his work in ecclesiastical architecture.

George attended Ushaw College in Durham, a college with connections to the Pugin family of architects. A.W.N. Pugin designed the chapel at Ushaw and his two sons Edward and Peter attended there and also designed the Junior House and the Refectory, respectively.

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Marie Madeleine Rose Siméon “Stylite” SIOC’HAN de KERSABIEC, 27 March 1830 – 7 December 1896.

In 1855 George married Marie Madeleine Rose Simeon Stylite  Sioc’han, from Kersabiec in Brittany. The Tablet noted in 1919, (01/11/1919, p.22) that the de Kersabiec were an old Breton family that had fought as part of the Papal