Researching John Bellew

John Higgin was born at Lancaster on 3 August 1823. He was the only child of an infantry officer, Captain Robert Higgin, of the 12th Regiment. His mother, Anne Maria Bellew, a Roman Catholic, who towards the close of 1822, had married Captain Higgin, was the daughter of John Bellew, of Castle Bellew, County Galway, and cousin of Lord Bellew. She was co-heiress under the will of her uncle, Major-general Bellew, heir-at-law of the O'Briens, earls of Thomond.

Educated during his earlier years at Lancaster Grammar School, Higgin was entered in 1842 as a student at St Mary Hall, Oxford. On attaining his majority in the autumn of 1844 he assumed his mother's maiden name, and dropped his patronymic. He was induced to do this by the circumstance of his being descended maternally from the senior branch of the O'Briens, and thus a descendant from Teige the second brother of Donough, the fourth earl, brother of Daniel O'Brien, 1st Viscount Clare. Soon after entering the university, he became known as a frequent and effective speaker at the Oxford Union.

Bellew met a young widow, Eva Maria Money, and they married on 27 March 1847. Together, they had four children: Evelyn Montesquieu Gambier (born 25 October 1847), Eva Sibyl (born October 1848), Harold Kyrle Money (better known as the famous late 19th century and early 20th century stage actor Kyrle Bellew; born 28 March 1850), and Ida Percy Clare (born 17 June 1852). Bellew received a mensa et thoro from his wife in 1855 on the grounds of adultery and took custody of their children, eventually divorcing her in 1861 and marrying Emily Louisa Wilkinson (née East) in that same year.

Bellew's aptitude for oratory encouraged him to take up a clerical career. Ordained in 1848, he was appointed a curate of St. Andrews in Worcester, and in 1850 transferred to a curacy at Prescot, Lancashire. In the following year he went to the East Indies. There, almost immediately upon his arrival in 1851 at Calcutta, he was nominated chaplain of St. John's Cathedral there. He held that position for four years, during part of which he also wrote for the Morning Post and edited the Bengal Hurkaru.

Returning to England in 1855, he was appointed assistant minister of St. Philip's, Regent Street. In 1857 he assumed the sole charge of St. Mark's Hamilton Terrace, Marylebone. That office he held for five years; in 1862 he became incumbent of Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury. Between 1855 and 1867 he became known as one of the most popular London preachers. It was said that no preacher of his time had greater oratorical gifts by nature, and that no man had taken greater pains than he to improve and cultivate them.

He published sermons, a novel (Blount's Tempest), and some work on poetry. In 1868, he converted to Roman Catholicism, his mother's faith and gave up Anglican holy orders on 13 August 1870. In so doing he gave up an income of around £1,000 a year.

Bellew continued to write, but became particularly known for his public readings, which were thought comparable to those of Charles Dickens and Fanny Kemble. However, making two American expeditions in rapid succession exhausted Bellew, and he died in his 51st year on 19 June 1874, at 16 Circus Road, St John's Wood, London. He was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.