Swithun Wells

Swithin Wells (c. 1536 – 10 December 1591) was an English Roman Catholic martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I. Wells was a country gentleman and one time schoolmaster whose family sheltered hunted priests. He himself often arranged passage from one safehouse to another. His home in Gray's Inn Lane (where he was hanged) was known to welcome recusants.

Life

Wells was born at Brambridge House, Hampshire in 1536, of a wealthy country family, and was christened with the name of the local saint and bishop Swithun. He was the youngest of the five or six sons of Thomas Wells of Brambridge, by Mary, daughter of John Mompesson. During the Reformation, his family contributed to the secret funerals of Catholics at the local cemetery, and their house was a place of refuge for priests. Wells was well-educated, a poet, musician, and sportsman.

At one time he was tutor to the household of the Earl of Southampton, and was for many years a schoolmaster at Monkton Farleigh in Wiltshire. In 1582 he came under suspicion for his popish sympathies and on 25 May 1582, the Privy Council ordered a search to be made for him. It was at that time that he gave up the school. During this period, he attended Protestant services, but in 1583, was reconciled to the Catholic Church. He actively supported priests, organizing their often dangerous journeys from one safehouse to another. In 1585 he went to London, where he purchased a house in Gray's Inn Lane. Their home was a centre of hospitality for recusants.

Arrests In June 1586, he was arrested with seminarians Alexander Rawlins and Christopher Dryland and imprisoned in Newgate Prison, but was released 4 July when his nephew posted bail. On 9 August 1586, he was examined for supposed complicity in the Babington Plot, and on 30 November 1586, he was discharged from the Fleet prison. At one point he went to Rome on a mission for the Earl of Southampton, but he returned to England to work in the English Catholic underground. He was again examined 5 March 1587, and on this occasion speaks of the well known recusant, George Cotton of Warblington, Hampshire, as his cousin. He was charged under the 1585 (27 Eliz. 1. c. 2) Act Against Jesuits, Seminary Priests and Other Such Disobedient Subjects. At his trial, he said that he had not been present at the Mass, but wished he had been.

Death Wells was sentenced to die by hanging, and a gibbet was erected outside his own house on 10 December 1591 Topcliffe then baited Wells, saying that "Dog-bolt Papists! you follow the Pope and his Bulls; believe me, I think some bulls begot you". Wells responded in kind: "if we have bulls to our fathers, thou hast a cow to thy mother". St Swithun Wells Church opened in nearby Fair Oak in 1978, and gives its name to the wider Catholic Parish of St Swithun Wells. However, in March 2026, due to a dwindling congregation and a lack of activities, the church dedicated to St Swithun Wells was closed. In any case, the Parish remains dedicated to him and comprises five churches in South and West Hampshire