The remains of one of the best-known English churchmen of the 19th Century have disintegrated, according to members of the Catholic Church who exhumed his body.

All that was found in the coffin of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who is tipped to become England’s first saint for more than a generation, were pieces of tassel from his hat and a brass plaque. There were plans for the remains of Cardinal Newman to be moved from his grave in Rednal, Worcestershire, to the Birmingham Oratory.

And there they would be placed in a marble sarcophagus. However, the oratory said the exhumation of Cardinal Newman’s grave revealed his coffin was not lead-lined and that his body had disintegrated.

Some have said the absence of a body is a miracle, while conspiracy theorists have claimed it is merely a way for the church to avoid making the cardinal, widely believed to have been a homosexual, a saint.

Peter Jennings, for the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory, said: “Burial in a wooden coffin in a very damp site makes this kind of total decomposition of the body unsurprising.”

“The absence of physical remains in the grave does not affect the progress of Cardinal Newman’s cause (to be made a saint) in Rome.”

The public will now have an opportunity to see a casket containing the items along with locks of the Cardinal’s hair during a vigil of prayer, from October 31 to November 1 at the Birmingham Oratory in Edgbaston.

Following the vigil of prayer there will be a special high mass on November 2.

Cardinal Newman, a revered priest, theologian and writer, was born in London in 1801.

The plans to remove the remains proved controversial as it was said to be the Cardinal’s dying wish to be buried in a grave at a cemetery in Rednal, alongside the body of his friend, Father Ambrose St John, who lived with him for 32 years.

The two men were inseparable, sparking rumours they could have been in a homosexual relationship.

Picture courtesy of Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory.