On 22nd November 1960, as he was walking in from a rugger match at Gilling Castle, Fr Bede collapsed with a heart attack. There was just time for him to receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction before he died. He was in his fiftieth year. A death so sudden, and of one so comparatively young, was inevitably a severe shock to the boys of the School, to his brethren, to the school staff and most of all to his mother and family. To the latter especially we offer our sympathy and the assurance of our prayers. To Fr Bede himself such an end was not altogether unexpected. Three years ago in America he had suffered a mild heart attack. He was well aware of, well prepared for, the possibility of a sudden call from his Master and it was something he had faced with the same calm courage and simple faith with which he had faced so much in life.
Father Bede, whose family has long-standing connections with Ampleforth, was born in Wimbledon on 15th May 1911. He came as a boy to Ampleforth in 1920, going first to the Preparatory School and later becoming one of the founder members of St Bede's House in the College. He made his mark in the school both as a Mathematical scholar and as a games player and in his last year he was head of his House. In 1930 he won a Mathematical Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. After taking his degree he returned to Ampleforth to join the Community, receiving the Habit from Abbot Matthews in October 1933, making his Simple Vows the following year and his Solemn Vows in 1937. In 1936 he returned to Oxford to study Theology under the Dominicans at Blackfriars. In July 1940 he was ordained Priest by Bishop Shine. A year previously on the completion of his Theological studies he had been sent to the Preparatory School, now at Gilling Castle, under the Headmastership of Fr Maurus Powell. Fr Bede always maintained that he was briefed to go to Gilling to teach Classics and used to relate how he made his first journey across the valley with a Latin Grammar in one hand and a Greek Grammar in the other. However that may be it was not long before he was established as the Senior Mathematics Master - a post he was to hold continuously, save for one year at St Louis Priory, until the day of his death. Some might have thought that it was a waste of talent that one so gifted intellectually should be confined to teaching small boys. No such idea occurred to Father Bede himself who never had any sense of confinement or restriction in his life at Gilling. To any task assigned to him he could apply his interest, his genius and his ingenuity wholeheartedly without pausing to ask himself if the task itself was important or unimportant or indeed worthy of his ability. As the years went by, far from becoming stale with the sameness of his work, his interest seemed to deepen and perhaps it is not without significance that he should have taken as much delight in finding a new way to explain the difficulties of long division to the slow pupil as he did in leading on the rare scholar towards the higher flights of Mathematics. His active, restless mind took him far beyond the daily task of teaching. He was always finding new interests, new problems to grapple with. For many years he was in charge of the games of the School. The new playing fields constructed after the war were made to his design and if his probing criticisms and fault-finding were the despair of the contracting firm the final result was eminently satisfactory to the School. The cinema and the recently installed Hi-Fi Radio and Gramophone are other material witnesses to his inventive genius. After so many years at Gilling it was natural that he came to be looked upon as an institution and as one to whom people instinctively turned for the solution of almost any problem.
Fr Bede's was a unique personality. Some found him difficult to approach and to understand. He was shy, not naturally endowed with the social graces (he was quite incapable of 'small-talk') and he was a fearless and sometimes devastatingly forthright critic, often giving a Cassandra-like touch to his prophecies of disaster. The tortuous workings of his mind did not find easy expression in words and these were made more obscure by what amounted almost to an impediment of speech. Only those who came to know him well and at close quarters could appreciate that there was never anything bitter or unkind in his criticisms. They were often no more than a manner of thinking aloud, of feeling his way towards the truth, and if at first he often seemed to pour cold water on any scheme proposed it did not mean that his criticism was destructive. If his first instinct was to look for the flaw in any suggestion, his second, if one were patient enough to listen, was to seek the remedy for it. In the small community at Gilling Father Bede found happiness and satisfaction. He contributed so much by his generous and kindly help to everyone, by his cheerful equanimity and by his rock-like sense of loyalty. Physically he was big and solid and these qualities seemed to betoken a bigness and flexibility of mind and a largeness of heart. If one is to look for the mainspring of his life and work one must of course seek it in his life as a monk and a priest. Just as he could be impatient of the frills and superficialities of social conventions, so also in matters spiritual he was not greatly interested, maybe not interested enough, in external forms. But for all that his spirituality ran very deep. His patent sincerity sprang from a love of truth and his fearless serenity from a simple faith and trust in the power and efficacy of God's Grace. We are but feeble instruments in the hands of God. If only we can give free play to His Grace there is no knowing what wonderful things He can work in us. May his soul rest in peace!
FREDERICK BEDE BURGE 22 November 1960
1911 15 May Born Wimbledon
1920-30 Educ Ampleforth
1930-33 Studied at Magdalene Coll Oxford (Schol Maths)
1933 27 Oct Habit
1934 29 Oct Temporary Vows
1937 29 Oct Solemn Vows
1940 21 Jul Priest
1936 Oct to Apr 1939 Studied Theology at Blackfriars Oxford
1939-57 Sent to Prep School at Gilling
1957 Jun St Louis USA
1958 Jul Returned to England in ill-health
Sep Rejoined staff at Gilling
1960 22 Nov Died suddenly at Gilling after heart attack
Buried at Ampleforth