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Second Spring
started to appear in print during 1992 as an 8-page quarterly supplement in the
American magazine Catholic World Report. In 1994 the editors
Stratford and Léonie Caldecott
founded a research centre in Oxford called the Centre for Faith & Culture,
associated with The Chesterton Review and the international review
Communio.
The Oxford Centre was initially a partnership between Westminster College in
Oxford at Botley (where it was physically located) and the Edinburgh theological
publishers T&T Clark. The two partners divided the costs between them, and the
Centre’s activities were equally divided between conferences and publications.
Before long it also provided a home for the G.K. Chesterton Library created by
Mr Aidan Mackey.
In 2001 Second Spring merged with the Newsletter of the Centre and
started to appear as an 80-page journal twice a year.
In 1998, after Westminster
College was acquired by Oxford Brookes University, the CFC moved to Plater
College in Headington, on the other side of Oxford. There Stratford taught a
course called Christianity and Society, maintaining the other activities of the
Centre with partial support from T&T Clark and also now from the G.K. Chesterton
Institute, founded by Rev. Ian J. Boyd CSB, publisher of The Chesterton
Review. A new website was developed and maintained by Mark Armitage.
In 2002, after the sad demise of Plater College, the Centre for Faith & Culture
merged for several years with the G.K. Chesterton Institute, creating the "G.K.
Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture", which was eventually based at Seton
Hall University in New Jersey with its Oxford Centre in King Street, Oxford.
After 2006 the Centre in Oxford became independent again. Stratford and Léonie,
together with a colleague, the artist David Clayton, started a company called
ResSource to develop educational projects in the spirit of Second Spring, but
ResSource fell victim of the difficult economic conditions, and from 2007 the
journal and the Centre were partially supported by the Thomas More College of
Liberal Arts in New Hampshire, where David Clayton now teaches as Artist in
Residence. Students from the College attend a summer school in Oxford, and the
Centre also maintains the G.K. Chesterton Library, which is owned by the
Chesterton Library Trust (registered charity number
1134101).
The company Second Spring Oxford, formed in 2010 and directed by the Caldecotts,
is now the owner of the various initiatives mentioned, and is actively working
to develop other resources and projects, along with a growing internet
apostolate.
Archive material on our past history
Inspiration from Newman
An unfinished timeline
The Rose Round girls’ group
Some associated publications
Civilization of Love manifesto
For several years the Centre for Faith & Culture was merged with the G.K.
Chesterton Institute:
lazu.htm
conference11.htm
beaconsfield.htm
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