Venerable John Ingram

John Ingram (1565 – 26 July 1594) was an English Jesuit and martyr from Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, who was executed in Gateshead on 26 July 1594, during the reign of Elizabeth I. Ingram was probably the son of Anthony Ingram of Wolford, Warwickshire, by Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Hungerford. Ingram is often confused with another John Ingram from Thame in Oxfordshire who attended New College Oxford. For this reason Ingram of Wolford is sometimes listed as one of the “Oxford Martyrs”. This conflation of the identities of the two men seems to have started in Carles Dodd's "Church History" of 1739, copied into Bishop Richard Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests in 1741, and repeated without challenge in subsequent publications. John Ingram left England aged around 17 years and traveled to Douai. After introductory training he, with three other young men, was sent to the Rheims to study under William Allen. This venture was not without incident. They were waylaid and held to ransom by a troop of Calvinist mercenaries in the pay of Francis, Duke of Anjou. The first mention of Ingram is in a letter from William Allen, Principal at Rheims, to the rector of the English College in Rome: However, the four young men, John Ingram, Richard Haward, Thomas Heath and Christopher Haywood, were resilient and resourceful enough to escape their captors and, individually made their way to Rheims, arriving, in states of the utmost destitution, during October and November 1582. In April 1583 John was sent to the newly-established Jesuit college at Pont-à-Mousson. The Rector at that time was the Scottish Jesuit Edmund Hay. Hay was the youngest son of the Baillie to the Earl of Erroll, and a relative. In September 1584 John left Pont-a-Moussin for the English College, Rome, enrolling in the October of that year. On 10 June 1585, he took the oath of commitment to return to England as a Missionary Priest and took minor orders.