George Leo Haydock (1774–1849) was a priest, pastor and Bible scholar from an ancient English Catholic Recusant family. His edition of the Douay Bible with extended commentary, originally published in 1811, became the most popular English Catholic Bible of the 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic. It remains in print and is still regarded for its apologetic value.
Father George Leo Haydock (1774–1849) c. 1800
Mowbreck Hall (destroyed by fire in the 1960s)
Watercolor of Douay College by George Leo Haydock while he was a student there
Crook Hall where George Leo Haydock was ordained in 1798. (The building was demolished ca. 1900)
The Douay–Rheims Bible, also known as the Douay–Rheims Version, Rheims–Douai Bible or Douai Bible, and abbreviated as D–R, DRB, and DRV, is a translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into English made by members of the English College, Douai, in the service of the Catholic Church. The New Testament portion was published in Reims, France, in 1582, in one volume with extensive commentary and notes. The Old Testament portion was published in two volumes twenty-seven years later in 1609 and 1610 by the University of Douai. The first volume, covering Genesis to Job, was published in 1609; the second, covering the Book of Psalms to 2 Maccabees plus the three apocryphal books of the Vulgate appendix following the Old Testament, was published in 1610. Marginal notes took up the bulk of the volumes and offered insights on issues of translation, and on the Hebrew and Greek source texts of the Vulgate.
Title page of the Old Testament, Tome 1 (1609)
Colleges at University of Douai
Title page of the Rheims New Testament alongside the first page of the Gospel According to Matthew from the Bishops' Bible, 1589, edited by William Fulke, who believed the Bishops' Bible New Testament was superior to the Rheims New Testament
Challoner's 1749 revision of the Rheims New Testament borrowed heavily from the King James Version.