ABSTRACT
Educated at St. Omers with his brothers, William Strickland had entered the English Jesuit noviciate at Watten in 1748 and had proceeded to Lige in 1750 to study philosophy and theology. In 1770, Strickland had been appointed superior of the Residence of St. John the Evangelist the Durham, Cumberland and Northumberland district of the English Jesuit province. From the foundation of the Jesuit mission to Maryland in 1634, the missionary and educational activity undertaken there had formed an integral part of the work of the English province: Jesuit priests and brothers had routinely been sent to Maryland as missioners either from England or Wales, or from English Jesuit establishments in the Low Countries and vice versa. Indeed the transatlantic link provided by the English Jesuit educational and missionary network, from 1634 down to the French revolution, involving constant traffic of Jesuits to Maryland from England and Wales and from English Jesuit houses and colleges in continental Europe.
