Ven. John Amias

An English Martyr; b. at Wakefield; d. at York, 16 March, 1589. He exercised the trade of a cloth-merchant in Wakefield until the death of his wife, when he divided his property among his children, and became a priest at Reims in 1581. Of his missionary life we know little; he was arrested at the house of a Mr. Murton in Lancashire, taken to York, and tried in company with two other martyrs, Dalby and Dibdale. Anthony (Dean) Champney was present at their execution, of which he has left an account in his history. Other accounts note that he went to death "as joyfully as if to a feast". He was declared Venerable in 1886.

CHALLONER; FOLEY, Records S.J., iii, 739; POLLEN, Acts of English Martyrs (London, 1891), 331.

PATRICK RYAN