At any rate, Destiny had brought them together, and they were married.
As a woman said once to me, "There is no choosing in love"—once the meeting has happened, all free choice is at an end.
Mrs. Francis Newman was not very strong, and later in life developed greater delicacy. It will be remembered that Newman's mother and sisters were living at Oxford at this time, and he was anxious some time later to bring his bride to see them. Unfortunately she fell ill, and the treatment given for her illness proved quite a mistaken one; consequently her recovery was much slower than it need otherwise have been. The journey was, besides, a tiring one for her in her state of health. They had to go from Bristol to Oxford, for by this time Newman was settled at Bristol College as classical tutor. He had previously been tutor in Dublin for a short time.
In 1836 Francis Newman went through the ceremony of Baptism at a chapel in Bristol. I say advisedly, "went through the ceremony," for I believe both he and his brother had received the rite in early childhood, when their father was alive.
Mr. George Hare Leonard, University College, Bristol, has kindly sent me some information as regards Francis Newman's work at Bristol, as also has Mr. Norris Mathews, the City Librarian of the Municipal Public Libraries there.
From them I learn that the college at which Newman was classical tutor was, not "Queen's," as has once or twice been asserted, but Bristol College. It was founded in 1831, and only existed ten years. Mr. Hare Leonard tells me that it was held in a large house in Park Row, and that it had some very distinguished pupils, Sir Edward Fry, the late Sir George Gabriel Stokes, [Footnote: Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge since 1849, and Fellow and President of Pembroke College, Cambridge, was born in 1819; senior wrangler, 1841. President of Royal Society 1885. Contributed many mathematical papers and lectures to the Royal Society and other societies at Cambridge University, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, etc.] and Walter Bagehot being amongst them.
At this time Newman was a member of the historic Baptist chapel at Broadmead. I think it must have been in this chapel, indeed, that he was re-baptized (as I mentioned a little earlier), and some of the congregation anticipated his becoming one of the sect of Plymouth Brethren.
Perhaps it is not generally known that Bristol College undertook to give religious instruction on Church of England lines to those boys whose parents wished it (I quote now from Mr. George Hare Leonard's letter to me): "This was not obligatory upon all, and there was a fierce attack on the college by certain of the clergy, and Bishop Gray was hostile. In 1841, under the influence of Monk (Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol), Bishop's College was founded close by, and the older and more liberal college was unable to stand the competition, and came to an end."
I quote here [Footnote: By the kindness of Miss Humphrey, Lensfield, Cambridge, who gave me this extract from a memoir of her father.] an account of the school life of the Vicar of St. Mary Redclyffe, Bristol:—
"In 1835 he went to Bristol College, a school that no longer exists, of which Dr. Jerrard, his brother William's friend and a mathematician of some note, was principal…. He remained for two years at Bristol College, and considered that when there he owed much to the teaching of Francis Newman, brother of the Cardinal, a man of charming character and great attainments (afterwards made manifest in many ways), who was then lecturer in elementary mathematics, and subsequently corresponded with him" (the Vicar of St. Mary Redclyffe) "on mathematical subjects when both had become famous."