Eyre, Charles Petre (1817–1902), Roman Catholic archbishop of Glasgow, was born on 7 November 1817 at York, the fifth of nine children and third of five sons of John Lewis Eyre (1789–1880), later a director of the South Western Railway Company, and his wife, Sara Parker (1790/91–1825), daughter of William Parker of Kingston upon Thames. After his mother's death, Eyre's father married Augustine Cecile Pulcherie (d. 1876), daughter of Armand Dumesniel, marquis de Sommery, in 1828. The Eyre family had been settled in Derbyshire since the thirteenth century, but had lost most of their lands by confiscation at the Reformation. They maintained their Catholic allegiance, however, and four of the five sons and one grandson of John Lewis Eyre were ordained priest. His two elder brothers having predeceased him, Charles Eyre succeeded to the papal title of count of the Lateran Hall on his father's death on 11 November 1880.
On 28 March 1826 Eyre entered St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, near Durham, where his great-uncle, Thomas Eyre, had been president. He was made deacon in May 1838, entered the English College, Rome, in December 1839, and was ordained at Rome on 19 March 1842. His working life was spent in almost equal parts between north-east England (twenty-six years), and Glasgow (thirty-three years). He was appointed to Newcastle in 1843; and to Wooler in 1849. Illness between May 1850 and July 1856 compelled him to undertake light work at Haggerstone Castle near Berwick upon Tweed, before returning to Newcastle. In 1868 he was appointed vicar-general of Hexham and Newcastle.
Eyre had already been identified as a future bishop, having been proposed for Hexham, and as coadjutor-archbishop of Sydney, Australia, in 1866. He was not, however, the first candidate proposed for the western district of Scotland in 1869. Indeed, Michael O'Sullivan of Birmingham was all but appointed before Henry Manning, archbishop of Westminster, submitted Eyre's name to Rome. Other candidates included the Redemptorists Robert Coffin and Edward Bridgett, and Bernard O'Reilly (later bishop of Liverpool). Eyre was nominated as delegate-apostolic for Scotland on 29 November 1868, titular archbishop of Anazarbus on 11 December 1868, and consecrated in Rome on 31 January 1869. On 16 April 1869, his appointment as administrator-apostolic of the western district of Scotland was confirmed.
Eyre arrived in Glasgow on 9 March 1869, with the twin task of preparing for the restoration of a diocesan hierarchy in Scotland, and to restore calm to the western district, which was deeply divided by tension between Scots and Irish Catholics. He attended the First Vatican Council in 1869–70, and he embarked on an extensive programme of school and church building. In 1874, he opened a local seminary, St Peter's College. Although his tenure of office as administrator-apostolic was not without an initially unsettled period, he was presented with an address in 1876, from Scots- and Irish-born clergy, commending the progress of the previous seven years.
Eyre developed an ultramontane identity among his people. But he did not share the view of some northern district clergy, who remained unconvinced of the need for a diocesan hierarchy, viewing it as inserting an intermediary into hitherto direct links with Rome through the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. With the ending in 1878 of the system of districts and vicariates-apostolic, he became archbishop of the restored archdiocese of Glasgow on 15 March of that year. His archdiocese included Motherwell and Paisley which later became dioceses (1948). Archdiocesan synods were held in 1881, 1888, and 1897, at which Eyre continued to promote schemes for the division of missions, which were almost dioceses in themselves. A cathedral chapter was erected in 1884.
The archbishop wrote extensively on historical and religious matters, including his History of St Cuthbert, first published in 1849, which reached a revised third edition in 1887. He also wrote Children of the Bible, a collection of leaflet lives of Scottish saints, and papers on the medieval cathedral of Glasgow. Eyre sought to have the Catholic community accepted as an integral part of Scottish life, and his efforts were recognized when he was made LLD by the University of Glasgow in 1892. In quite another sphere Eyre (with Michael Davitt) was among the early patrons of Celtic Football Club, founded in 1888. Eyre died at his home, 6 Bowmont Gardens, Glasgow, aged eighty-four, on 27 March 1902; he was buried on 31 March at St Peter's College, Bearsden, but has since been re-buried at St Andrew's Cathedral, Glasgow.
Mary McHugh
New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 21, 22 May 1902, Page 15
Death of the Archbishop of Glasgow.
As briefly announced "in our last issue the Moßt Rev. Dr. Eyre LL.D., Archbishop of Glasgow, died on March 27 after an illness extending over some weeks. By his death the Catholic Church has lost one of its most eminent and erudite prelates, and the Western diocese of Scotland a Metropolitan who for over 30 years had been the apostolic architect and devoted director of its destinies.
The deceased prelate was descended from an ancient and aristocratic Catholic family belonging to Derbyshire, and was born at Askham, Bryan Hall, Yorkshire, on the 17th November, 1817. He was the eldest surviving Born of the late John Lewis Count Eyre, who in turn was the fifth son of Vincent Eyre, of Highfield and Newbold, Derby.
His earlier years were passed in his ancestral hall, and there the rudiments of learning were imparted to him. In the spring of 1826, being then little over nine years of age, he was sent to the famous College of Ushaw, County Durham, and of the long line of illustrious Churchmen which that famous seat of learning has given to the faith, Archbishop Eyre ranks as one of the most distinguished. When he finished at Ushaw he proceeded to Rome to complete his theological studies, and was ordained priest in 1842. In the following year he returned to England, and was appointed to Newcastle. In 1847 whilst attending to his clerical duties among the poor he contracted fever and for a time his life was despaired of.
After laboring for some years in country parishes he was appointed in 1869 as Administrator Apostolic of the Western District of Scotland, and 10 years later was made Metropolitan of the See of Glasgow, Leo XIII, having then restored the Scottish Hierarchy, which had no representative since the death of James Beatoun, Archbishop of Glasgow, in 1603.
Under Archbishop Eyre the western diocese prospered by leaps and bounds. The late Archbishop was the first of the Scottish prelates to revive the Cathedral Chapters of Scotland. In 1892 he replaced the old ecclesiastical seminary of Partickhill with the new magnificent college at Kilpatrick, which he erected with money from his own private means, at a cost of £25,000. More recently he made a gift to the archdiocese of a large training college at Dowan Hill for young ladies who intended to devote their lives to the work of Catholic education. St. Charles's Church at Kelvinside was built by the Archbishop with his own private means. As a pious and scholarly writer on sacred and historical subjects the Archbishop achieved considerable distinction.
As to the Archbishop's work (says the Catholic Times') it may be said thst in the annals of the world's Catholicity the archdiocese of Glasgow stands unsurpassed for organisation. The clergy and the laity of the west owe it all, under the providence of God to their late beloved Metropolitan whose guiding genius for 33 years ruled and directed the affairs of the archdiocese.
The body was removed on Easter Sunday from the residence of the late prelate to St. Andrew's Cathedral, where it lay in state till the funeral on Monday After the Solemn Requiem Mass in the cathedral a panegyric was preached by Bishop Macfarlane, Dunkeld, who said that when Archbishop Eyre came to Glasgow in 1869 there were 74 priests ; now there were 234, with 82 miss-'ona. In his first year there were 8519 baptisms ; in 1900 there were 13,414, and the Catholic population had increased by 100,000, As he proceeded to pay a high personal tribute to the worth of the late Archbishop, Bishop Macfarlane became greatly affected, and passed on to remark that to-day Archbishop Eyre was not being laid to rest in the home of his ancestors, but in the midst of his people.
The funeral cortege'was one of the largest ever seen in Glasgow, 130 carriages taking part in the solemn procession to Dalbeth. The body will remain in its present resting place until the church and vault have been erected at the seminary at Bearsden, to which the remains of the deceased Archbishop will be transferred.