Hugh George de Willmott Newman

He could not be ordained priest in the Catholic Apostolic Church, as the last of its twelve apostles,, had died in 1901.

Hugh George de Willmott Newman (17 January 1905 – 28 February 1979) was an Independent Catholic or independent Old Catholic bishop.

He was known religiously as Mar Georgius I and bore the titles, among others, of Patriarch of Glastonbury, Catholicos of the West, and sixth British Patriarch.

Hugh George de Willmott Newman was born at Forest Gate, London, on 17 January 1905.

He was baptized in the Catholic Apostolic Church in Hackney.

His father and grandfather both had served as deacons in the Catholic Apostolic Church.

From 7 to 30, Newman was an acolyte in the Catholic Apostolic Church.

McFall had been priest of the Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain (ORCGB) since 1910, and had been consecrated bishop there in 1916.

Shortly after his consecration, Arnold Mathew excommunicated him.

In April 1925, McFall became the "nominal head" of a splinter group from the ORCGB, which called itself the Old Catholic Orthodox Church and was composed of only laypeople.

In 1937 he married Lola Ina del Carpio Barnardo, great-niece of Thomas Barnardo, at the Catholic Apostolic Church in Maida Hill.

Thereafter, he became general manager of the National Association of Cycle Traders and Repairers, a trade association of employers.

He also edited the association's magazine, The National Journal.

By 1938, Newman was "convinced of a clear call to the priesthood".

In the summer of 1938, Newman wrote to propose himself to be ordained priest to Bishop James McFall, who styled himself as Regionary Old Catholic Bishop for Ireland.

McFall accepted Newman's request.

On 23 October 1938, at the age of 33, Newman received from Bishop James Columba McFall, who had come from Belfast to perform the following sacraments: baptism under condition, confirmation, the four minor orders, the subdiaconate and the diaconate, and the priesthood.

"No sooner had [McFall] returned to Belfast than [sic] he released the newly ordained priest from his jurisdiction, and forgot all about him".

In early 1939, Newman was adopted as priest by the Old Catholic Orthodox Church, which could find no priest and whose groups were in Hounslow and South Harrow.

He then tried to find a bishop for him and his flock.

Newman asked "almost every free-lance prelate in Britain and Ireland" with no success.

He then got in contact with Mar John Emmanuel (Arthur Wolfort Brooks), head of the Apostolic Episcopal Church (Holy Eastern Catholic and Apostolic Church), headquartered in New York, who accepted Newman's request and put Newman under his jurisdiction.

John Emmanuel became the Presiding Bishop of the Old Orthodox Catholic Church in England.

By a document dated 26 October 1941, Newman was named abbot nullius of St Albans, in the Order of Corporate Reunion (OCR); the OCR had become a part of the Apostolic Episcopal Church in 1933.

Newman's jurisdiction was limited to the 5 miles of St. Albans, but in cases of members of the OCR it extended over the whole Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Four days later, Newman was also appointed archpriest and Vicar-General of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church in Europe, with an unlimited jurisdiction.

Anson notes that "[s]o far as is known, this was the first occasion that a lawfully married priest in England had ever been raised to the status of Abbot-Nullius".

Then, Newman and his wife left Northampton to move to Enfield Lock, in Middlesex, "where the curia of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church was set up".

During the spring of 1943, Newman also became secretary and registrar of the Incorporated Institute of Cycle Traders and Repairers.

On 8 October 1943, a synod of clergy and laity of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church in Europe elected Newman to the episcopate as archbishop and metropolitan of Glastonbury.

On 20 December of the same year, this decision was approved by the authorities of the Apostolic Episcopal Church.

Mar John Emmanuel allowed bishop William Bernard Crow (named Mar Abdullah III) to perform Newman's episcopal consecration, because Emmanuel could not travel from the United States to England due to the Second World War.

During the three months the letter of authorization took to reach the UK from the US, Newman became convinced the Old Catholic Orthodox Church was schismatic and redundant because the Ancient British Church was the real indigenous Church of England; Newman believed the Old Catholic Orthodox Church should be absorbed into the Ancient British Church, which was done on 23 March 1943.

He was the head of the Catholicate of the West from when he became a bishop, in 1944, until his death in 1979.

Newman was first consecrated bishop by William Bernard Crow, the leader of the Order of Holy Wisdom, in 1944.

Willmott Newman is notable for having subsequently undergone numerous ceremonies of reconsecration, thereby laying claim to numerous different lines of historic apostolic succession.

Over a ten-year period between 1944 and 1955, there were nine (or ten ) ceremonies in each of which Newman and another bishop would reconsecrate each other to give each the other's lines of apostolic succession.

On 10 April 1944, Newman was consecrated bishop by William Bernard Crow to be the head of the Catholicate of the West.

The consecration took place at St Andrew's Collegiate Church in South Tottenham, London; at the time, this church was a Free Protestant Episcopal church and its use had been granted to Newman and Crow for the occasion.

McFall died in 1960.