Alexander Goss

Alexander Goss (5 July 1814 — 3 October 1872) was the second Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Liverpool.

Biography Alexander Goss was born on July 5, 1814 at Ormskirk, Lancashire of recusant background, connected on both sides with old Lancashire families who had always been Catholics; his father was descended from the Gooses or Gosses, his mother from the Rutters. His maternal uncle, the well-known priest, Rev. Henry Rutter, sent him to Ushaw College, 20 June 1827, where he distinguished himself as a student. When he had completed his philosophy course he was appointed as a "minor professor" to teach one of the classes in the humanity schools. On the death of his uncle, he spent the legacy he received, in going to Rome, where he studied theology at the English College, and was ordained priest on 4 July 1841. For the first he edited "Abbott's Journal" and "The Tryalls at Manchester in 1694" (1864); for the Manx Society, Chronica Regum Manniæ et Insularum, with P. A. Munch, to which he made valuable additions. An account of Harkirke burial-ground for recusants, and an introduction written by him were published by the Chetham Society in Crosby Records (M.S., 12, 1887).

He collected materials for a history of Catholicity in the north, and edited Claude-Joseph Drioux's "Sacred History, comprising the leading facts of the Old and New Testament". For many years he suffered so much that his friend, Rev. T.E. Gibson, wrote of him (Lydiate Hall and its Associations, Introd.): "A prey to disease during the greater part of his episcopate, his life was the struggle of a fearless soul with bodily ailments and with the harassing mental anxieties incidental to his position."

Bishop Goss died suddenly at St. Edward's College on 3 October 1872, aged 58.

There are two paintings of the bishop at St. Edward's College, Liverpool.