A Dominican monk

A carte-de-visite portrait of a Dominican monk. Given the photographer's location, he was probably a member of the monastic community at Woodchester near Stroud in Gloucestershire.

'A portion of the Dominican Fathers, or Black Friars, who have resided at Hinckley, Leicestershire, for upwards of 40 years, are about to remove to Woodchester, in the vale of Stroud, Gloucestershire’ (Stamford Mercury, 4 October 1850).

In fact, I think I recognise him as Father Peter Paul Mackey (1852-1935) of the English Dominicans. Born Daniel Mackey at Erdlington near Birmingham, his father was Edward Walter Mackey (1806-1871), and artist in oil and watercolours who lived in Erdington High Street, had a studio in Birmingham and taught art at Oscott. Daniel studied law at Oscott College, the Roman Catholic seminary in Sutton Coldfield, and then theology at Louvain. He moved to Rome in 1881 to edit the works of St Thomas Aquinas and during the 1890s took a series of over 2000 photographs of the city's Roman ruins and the Italian countryside.

Photographed by Oliver Claude Smith of Stroud, Gloucestershire.