Edward Bellasis was the son of George Bellasis, a scion of a younger branch of the
Belasyse family, and his second wife, Leah Cooper Viall, the daughter and heiress of Emery Viall of
Walsingham, Norfolk. His uncle,
John Bellasis, and his half-brothers, Joseph and George, won high military honours in India towards the close of the eighteenth century. Edward Bellasis was educated at
Christ's Hospital, and made his legal studies at the
Inner Temple. At a relatively early age, Bellasis formed a practice at the
Court of Chancery. He also became involved with the
Parliamentary Committees, frequently litigating disputes over the large number of new railway lines being built in England at that time. In 1844, he was appointed
Serjeant-at-Law. After the death of a first wife in 1832, Bellasis married Eliza Garnett in 1835. The couple had ten children together; two of their sons, the eldest and youngest, became priests, and three daughters became nuns. One of his sons, also named
Edward Bellasis, became an eminent
genealogist. Through his involvement with the
Oxford Movement, Bellasis befriended figures including
Frederick Oakeley,
William George Ward, and
John Brande Morris. On 27 December 1850, he was received into the
Catholic Church by a
Jesuit priest by the name of Brownhill, and his wife and children followed soon after. Subsequently, Bellaris was involved in a number of Catholic charitable endeavors. He assisted
John Henry Newman in founding the
Birmingham Oratory, provided scientific equipment for the
Stonyhurst Observatory, collected
relics for churches, and supported the
Sisters of Nazareth. He was also involved in some major legal cases having to do with Catholic figures, such as the 1852 case of
Achilli v. Newman, and the litigation over the title and estates of
John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury. He made frequent private
retreats, and occasionally published pamphlets on Catholic topics, as well as a volume of short dialogues collected under the title "Philotheus and Eugenia". Bellasis retired in 1867, and died on 24 January 1873. Newman, who had dedicated his 1870
Grammar of Assent to Bellasis, described him as "one of the best men I ever knew." ==References==