Background
He was the son of Charles Cordell and Hannah Darrell, of the Cordell family of Scotney Castle and Calehill, Kent.
He was the son of Charles Cordell and Hannah Darrell, of the Cordell family of Scotney Castle and Calehill, Kent.
He was educated first at "Dame Alice"s School", Fernyhalgh, afterwards at Douai College, where, in 1739, he began his course of philosophy.
Having been ordained priest, he left the college 10 June 1748, for England, where he served the mission at Arundel (1748-1755), Rounday, in Yorkshire, the Isle of Manitoba, and finally Newcastle upon Tyne (1765-1791). In 1778 the presidency of the English college at Saint-Omer was offered to him, but he would not accept lieutenant He was a scholarly, book-loving man, of some note as a preacher.
In politics he remained a staunch Jacobite.