Edward Fortescue

Edward Bowles Knottesford-Fortescue (1816–1877) was an English Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism.

Life Edward Fortescue was born in 1816 in Stoke-by-Nayland in Suffolk, Francis and Maria had two sons, George and Edward.

Fortescue's father was ordained in the Church of England. In 1823 the family moved to the family estate at Alveston on the outskirt of Stratford-on-Avon, where Francis Fortescue became rector of the parish of Billesley. Fortescue was educated at home before entering Wadham College, Oxford, on 5 June 1834 at the age of 18. He acquired a B.A. in 1838, and an M.A. in 1842.

He was ordained in 1840. After a curacy in Billesley, he became the incumbent at Wilmcote. The Oxford Movement was a Catholic revival movement in the Church of England beginning in the early 19th century, centred in Oxford, and Wilmcote was the site they chose to build a church, a school and a retreat house. The early 19th-century village had no church and was then a part of the adjoining parish of Aston Cantlow but with a growing working class population due to the growth of the Wilmcote quarries, the village was much in need of a church and a school. The modern church of St Andrew, built in 1841, is a monument to the influence of the Oxford Movement in the parish. It was built by the Francis Fortescue-Knottesford and Edward, who became the first curate, to meet the semi-industrial conditions created by the opening of the cement works in the 1830s. The parishes were re-organized, and portions of the parishes of Aston Cantlow and Stratford-on-Avon became the consolidated chapelry of St Andrew, Wilmcote. Fortescue introduced the use of Eucharistic vestments while at Wilmcote. He was "highly regarded as a preacher and retreat master".

In 1851 he was appointed dean of St Ninian's, Perth and then provost when cathedral status was confirmed by Wordsworth in 1853; this after John Mason Neale had declined. Fortescue remained there for 20 years until he resigned in 1871. On 8 September 1857, he chaired the inaugural meeting of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom. While at Perth, he became embroiled in the ritualist controversy.

At the age of twenty-two, Fortescue had married Frances Anne Spooner, daughter of Archdeacon William Spooner, rector of Elmdon. Her sister was married to Archibald Campbell Tait, who, in 1868 became Archbishop of Canterbury. Frances died in 1868. In 1871 Fortescue married Gertrude Martha Robins,

His fourth son, George Knottesford Fortescue (1847–1912), became keeper of printed books in the British Museum in 1899. His fifth son, Vincent was rector of Bubbenhall in Kenilworth from 1884 to 1906. Adrian Fortescue (1874–1923) was a Roman Catholic priest, liturgist, Byzantine scholar and adventurer.

Edward Fortescue died on 18 August 1877. He was buried at St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green.