The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-25
KING OF PRIESTLY SWINDLE RS
DONKIN,S CRIMINAL CAREER
ENDED ny HIS DEATH.
Ills Frauds Extended From Australia 10
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. in Half . Dozen
Rellglons-Served y Term In jail in
Rome-GeneraIly Managed TO Get on.

Edward Donkin, Bishop of Santa Crooe
NJ Antioch and holder of several other
self conferred ecclesiastical titles, is dead
in London. He was one Of the most pio-
t,resoue small swindlers in the world.
For fifteen years he ranged the world
from Australia to Milwaukee, obtaining
money and getting credit upon his pre-
tensions Of ecclesiastical position and great
Aety. He swindled all the branches Of
lie Catholic Church impartially, posing
ut various times as a priest Of the Roman
catholics, the Greek Catholics, the Old
Catholics and the Church of England.
He worked monasteries by the dozen,
and his changes Of faith were swifter and
more dazzling than those OF the Vicar Of
Bray. Yet so pious were his ways and so
great was his learning in theology that
there remained hundreds of people in Eng
laad who believed until last year that he
vas a persecuted and unfortunate holy
man.
He was exposed in 1905 by Labouchere
In London Truth, and a part Of his life was
made public. At that time he was ar
rested for obtaining money under false
pretences, but managed to crawl out through
holes in the law.
Just who Donkin was no one knows. It
Is said that he was born in England Of good
family. He appeared first in Australia
IN the early 1908 and entered Benedictine
monastery.
He represented himself there as an Ok
ford NJ. A. and a Roman Catholic. The
fathers were deceived by his apparent
p!ety and he was taken into the monastery
as a novice.
He did not remain long, although he
seems to have picked up there the founda-
tons Of his priestly knowledge which he
used afterward. just why he left the place
has never been told, but it is easy to guess.
He was a man of very low life. and many
Of his campaigns ended with a scandal.
In 1893 he appeared in England. Here
he made his first change of religion. He
represented himself as an Anglican priest,
and got a curacy in the diocese OF Bath
ard Wells.
He had presented forged credentials,
and when this was discovered he was de-
posed. He bobbed up again as a Roman
Catholic at Glastonbury. There he asked
for admission in a French monastery, rep
resenting himself as a young man OF fashion
who was tired Of the world.
Things we're going we'll, when 1t was
discovered that he had rolled up large
debts in the n~eighborhood on the strength
Of his connection with the monastery.
That ended him there. The monks paid
the debts to save the good name Of the
order.
At Downside, near Bath, he tried it On
another monastery. That time he was an
Anglican clergyman who wanted to enter
the Roman Catholic faith, and he presented
forged letters of ordination from the very
Bishop of Bath who had deposed him from
his curacy.
This was discovered before very long,
but not before he had touched Roman Catho-
lio clergymen in London during one of his
absences from the monastery. Next he
caught the famous Father Ignatius, superior
OF Llanthony Abbey. 1t was the same old
game-an English clergyman who had been
attracted to Rome.
Father ~IRnatius was duped for a long
time. but an accident proved to him that
Donkin had been telling him e string of lies
about his family and property. The Catho-
lie papers Of England bulletined him as a
fraud, and he left the country for the time
being.
After that he abandoned the church graft
for a time and worked Paris as a British
nobleman. A year or two later a party
Of monks from Downside found him in
a Benedictine monastery in Rome. There
he was fairly caught and did a term in Jail
for the frauds which he had perpetrated
in the name of the monastery.
After his release he tried England again,
very nearly persuaded the monks OF a
Capuchin establish ment to take him in as a
converted Anglican priest, and was caught
yust in time. That time the affair received
SO much publicity that he started for
America.
not definitely Known. lie appeared first in
Buffalo in 1890. There he had a mission"
and was associated with one Father Basil
Known to the police all over the world, and
finally sen, to prison in Chicago;
Complaint Of some of Donkin's perform
ances reached the Gerry society in New
York and he was Investigated. The evil
dence was all against him. 1t was found,
Moreover. that he had ran mp n LOT of debts
m the strength OF the mission and had been
borrowing money right and left. Cne night
he dropped out OF Buffalo and disappeared
until his arrival in Milwaukee in 1882.
His American career ia tied M closely
with that of Father Basil. and it is hard to
tell which one worked certain American
cities.
When he appeared in Milwaukee he rep.
resented himself as a Church Of England
missioner, st. Augustine's Priory, London"
The High Church clergy OF the diocese took
him up, and he preachedi in several churches.
He is remembered there as an effective
preacher.
When asked about his antecedents he
admitted that he was the son OF the Duke
Of Devon, with the title Lord Courtnay.
He did not like to speak of it, he said; he
was just a humble priest.
In High Church circles this consecrated
man with the noble ancestry became ONE
thing Of a rage. He gathered many OF his
admirers into an ecclesiastical order OF his
own imagination, known as the Order of
the Red Cord.
This died out. only those on the inside
know why; and at about that time he met
a priest Of the Old Catholic Church. Donkin
professed himself a convert to the Old
Catholics, and travelled>to Chicago, at the
expense OF his new friend. TO see Archbishop
Villatte, who professed to be head Of the
movement in the United States.
was completely blinded, said the Arch
bishop afterward.
Lord Courtney" was ordained a priest
Of the Old Catholic Church, and began his
ministration in Chicago. The graft there
lasted longer than usual. II was more
than a year before n scandal broke out and
the Archbishop unfrocked him and cast him
ont.
He moved on to Cleveland. There he
founded an independent Catholic Church
and did well. But there was another scan
dal. He was arrested but escaped convic-
IN. Nevertheless the town was made so