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Goss, Alexander (1814–1872), Roman Catholic bishop of Liverpool, was born on 5 July 1814 in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the only son of John Goss and his wife, Elizabeth Moorcroft. Educated at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw (1827–39), and at the English College, Rome, he was ordained priest in July 1841. His first major appointment was as vice-president of the new St Edward's College, Everton, Liverpool, in 1842, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was a shy person, able to speak his mind, as he said, only to ‘plain, homely, Lancashire folks’, but at 6 feet 3 inches tall he had a commanding public presence and was a forceful speaker and controversialist.

On 25 September 1853 Goss was consecrated bishop of Gerra, and appointed coadjutor to Dr George Brown, the first bishop of the new diocese of Liverpool. Their relationship was stormy, involving appeals to Rome, and Goss was very critical of Brown's lax administration, an attitude which did much to colour his aims when he succeeded him in January 1856. The keynote of Goss's episcopate was authority: to establish his own over his clergy and to define that of the new diocesan bishops in relation to both Westminster and Rome. He refused to recognize clerical claims to be consulted on matters of policy or appointments, established an efficient administration, and laid down detailed guidelines for the life of his priests. He joined battle with the Jesuits and Benedictines, insisting that as parish clergy they were under his jurisdiction, and he limited the right of gentry families to appoint their chaplains.

Goss was the unofficial leader of the bishops against both Cardinal Wiseman and Cardinal Manning, objecting to their interference in diocesan matters and stressing the independent rights and jurisdiction of each bishop. He distrusted Manning's intrigues at Rome and the ultramontane habit of looking to Rome for universal guidance. Wiseman thought he had an ‘Anglican … unRoman spirit’ while Manning regarded him as a ‘radical anti-Romanist’. Both missed the point: Goss wanted to be allowed to administer his diocese as he thought best, with all the knowledge of the man on the ground. He had a low opinion of the abilities of Roman officials, and claimed that nothing had ever wounded his faith so much as their trickery. While he fully accepted the pope's primacy and his temporal power, he opposed the definition of infallibility in 1870 and would have voted against it had illness not prevented him from attending the First Vatican Council.

Goss was also concerned to kill any suggestion that Roman Catholics were alien or disloyal. He gloried in his Englishness, frequently telling his people, ‘I am English, I am a real John Bull, indeed I am a Lancashire man’. ‘In heart we are English’, he claimed, ‘in purpose we are loyal’. These sentiments did not endear him to the Irish majority of his flock, but he refused to treat them any differently from their English counterparts, hoping that they would integrate fully into English society. There was strong anti-Catholicism in Liverpool and he was frequently involved in local controversy. He fought for equality for Catholics in public institutions. His attitudes to social problems were those of a rather reactionary, paternalistic tory. Caution, perhaps, won out over originality, but his years as bishop saw a considerable increase in the number of churches (from 90 to 120), priests (from 137 to 202), and schools.

In line with the Counter-Reformation episcopal ideal Goss preached a strongly sacramental and individualistic piety and his personal life was one of asceticism, poverty, and unending devotion to duty. He still found time for scholarship, publishing A Sacred History, Comprising the Leading Facts of the Old and New Testaments (edited from a French original, 1856); The Manchester Trials (1864); and The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys (2 vols., 1874). He was meticulous, persevering, and well-read—an ideal historical editor; he also collected materials for a projected history of northern Catholicism. He died of a stroke at St Edward's College on 3 October 1872, and was buried at Ford, Liverpool.

Peter Doyle

Sources
W. M. Brady, The episcopal succession in England, Scotland, and Ireland, AD 1400 to 1875, 3 (1877), 418–22; facs. edn (1971) · Gillow, Lit. biog. hist. · ‘Consecration of the Right Rev. Doctor Goss at Liverpool’, The Tablet (1 Oct 1853), 627–8 · The Times (4 Oct 1872) · The Times (10 Oct 1872) · The Tablet (12 Oct 1872), 467–71 · P. Doyle, ‘Bishop Goss of Liverpool (1856–1872) and the importance of being English’, Religion and national identity, ed. S. Mews, SCH, 18 (1982), 433–47 · P. Hughes, ‘The bishops of the century’, The English Catholics, 1850–1950, ed. G. A. Beck (1950), 186–222 · P. Doyle, ‘Bishop Goss and the gentry’, North West Catholic History, 12 (1985), 6–13 · P. Doyle, ‘An episcopal historian’, North West Catholic History, 15 (1988), 6–15 · DNB · parish register (baptism), St Anne's, Ormskirk, 12 July 1814

Archives
Archive of the Archbishop of Liverpool, Liverpool curial offices · Archivio Vaticano, Vatican City, Propaganda Fide archives · Lancs. RO, corresp. and papers · Lancs. RO, Liverpool Roman Catholic diocesan archive · Ushaw College, Durham, corresp. and papers | Upholland College Library and Archive, Skelmersdale, Lancashire · Westm. DA, letters to Wiseman

Likenesses
oils, Upholland College, Skelmersdale, Lancashire

Wealth at death
under £4000: resworn probate, March 1873, CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1872)

[Source]: www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11111