Father Hilary died within ten days of his ninetieth birthday, with the record behind him of seventy-two years in the Benedictine habit and sixty-four in the priesthood. He was in choir, praying after Compline, when the seizure came upon him which resulted twelve days later in his death. That Compline was really the end for him, since he did not properly recover consciousness again. Noctem quietam et finem perfectum concedat nobis Dominus Omnipotens. The lovely Compline blessing was aptly fulfilled in him.
Edward (Hilary) Willson was born at Lincoln, 23rd December 1858. He came to school at Ampleforth in 1870, took the habit at Belmont 3rd September 1876, and made his Simple Profession there 7th September 1877. He made his Solemn Profession at Ampleforth 14th September 1880, and was ordained priest by Bishop Hedley 23rd March 1884.
Four years later (August 1888) he was sent to Belmont to be Novice Master, and for eleven years served the Congregation in that capacity with untiring zeal and devotion. While at Belmont he became one of the Canons of the diocese.
To Belmont succeeded eleven years of missionary labour: as assistant priest successively at Brownedge and St Anne's, Liverpool, and then, (1904) as incumbent of Leyland. From Leyland he went in January of 1910 to be Prior and temporary Superior of Fort Augustus and thus to begin a further nine and a half years of conventual life. He resigned the priorship in 1912, to become in the following year (under Abbot Hunter Blair) Master of Novices and Laybrothers, and Subprior. When Abbot Hunter Blair resigned (November 1917) Fr Hilary again became Prior and temporary Superior, and so remained until the election of Abbot McDonald, in the summer of 1919.
In September of 1919 he became incumbent of Abergavenny and while there was honoured with the dignity of Cathedral Prior Rochester (1922), no doubt a recognition of the sterling service he had given both at Belmont and at Fort Augustus, not to mention his missionary labours. He left Abergavenny in 1924, and after short periods at Colwich Abbey and Dowlais held the incumbency of Easingwold for eleven years (1926-37). At the end of this period he was in his seventy-ninth year and retirement to his monastery seemed to be the natural course; but it is characteristic of his vigorous old age that it was, so to say, punctuated by a series of abortive retirements. He retired to Ampleforth in September of 1937, but in the next year obeyed the call to go as assistant to Warwick Bridge. Again, at the end of 1939, he retired to Ampleforth; but again went forth, this time to be chaplain at Oulton Abbey (1941-44). Finally, in December of 1944, he did really retire to his monastery, never to leave it again; but, even so, the last four years of his life hardly conformed to normal standards of retirement. It was no existence of the armchair and carpet slippers variety, although he was approaching ninety. It was a life of regular monastic devotion and unremitting industry.
Such is the bare outline of Fr Hilary's long and full life, into which he threw himself with unflagging zeal, being in the truest sense 'game to the last.' It should be clear from the outline how much solid work he managed to achieve, a great deal of it of that exacting kind that is known as 'collar-work.' He was helped by a constitution, which, though never robust, was of a tough fibre. Occasionally he had experience of real sickness, and he had to endure more than one operation. But these things did not disturb him; on the contrary he took the greatest interest in the epic combats which had engaged the skill of the surgeons and his own courage, and afterwards would recount them with an almost embarrassing wealth of detail. But, for the most part, his body served him very well and never really hindered his spiritual life, a life of the deepest piety and solid attachment to his monastic profession. There was no mistake about these things; nor could one fail to notice the genuine humility and docility of his character.
It fell to Fr Hilary, in the course of his life, to do much preaching and giving of spiritual conferences. The work came easily to him, yet it cannot be said that he was a talented preacher. He could be trusted to utter sound and solid teaching; but he had not a little of that level copiosity which tends to paralyse the hearer's attention. So also, in the social intercourse of everyday life, at least in his later years. His retentive memory superabounded in detail, and (with Herodotus) he had a gift for digressions.
Apart from the main duties of his religious life which were always primary with him - he was no mean antiquarian, with a special taste for genealogical research. This is evidenced by his several articles in The Ampleforth Journal, and by the introduction to the Abergavenny registers that he wrote for the Catholic Record Society, of which Society he was a devoted member. This antiquarian taste of his served his monastery in good stead; for from the beginning of what may be called his false retirements, i.e. from 1937 until his death, he did a really vast quantity of work in the archives of his house, arranging great masses of letters and documents into volumes and files, and finally compiling a full index to the whole collection. Nor was this his only work of the kind, for he undertook several subsidiary tasks besides. And, when his major work was completed, in the summer of this year, he did not rest on his oars but turned at once to the compilation of an index to The Ampleforth Journal. As Cicero says of the aged Plato, he 'died writing'; and indeed his busy and happy old age reminds us of many other portrait in the gallery of the De Senectute.
But it is in the Christian framework of the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History that Fr Hilary's true place lies, along with St Bede's account of his own devoted monastic service and along with the touching prayer with which the History concludes. There seems a special aptness also in such a narrative as that of the death of the poet Caedmon, 'a very religious man, humbly submissive to the discipline of monastic rule.' It was, says St Bede, a gentle and quiet death. 'Because he had served the Lord with a simple and pure mind and quiet devotion, even so did he leave the world by a quiet death and go to behold His Presence.'
E HILARY WILLSON 13 December 1948
1858 23 Dec Born Lincoln
1870-76 Educ Ampleforth
1876 3 Sep Habit at Belmont
1877 7 Sep Simple Profession Prior Raynal
1879 22 Jun Minor Orders Belmont Bishop Brown
1880 14 Sep Solemn Vows Ampleforth Prior Whittle
1881 11 Jun$$ Subdeacon Bishop Lacy
1883 24 Feb Deacon " "
1884 23 Mar Priesthood Ampleforth Bishop Hedley
1888 27 Aug Novice Master to the EBC at Belmont
Canon of Cathedral Chapter
1899 Assistant at Brownedge
1900 Assistant at St Anne's Liverpool
1904 5 Nov Incumbent at Leyland
1910 22 Jan Fort Augustus
29 Jan Enthroned as Prior & temporary Superior by Abbot Smith
(acting for Abbot Pres Gasquet)
1912 Resigned as Prior of Fort Augustus
1913 9 Feb Novice Master & Lay Brother Master at Fort Augustus
14 Mar Sub Prior
1917 28 Nov Prior & temporary Superior
1919 26 Aug Resigned Priorship in hands of Abbot Butler (Pres)
6 Sep Abergavenny
1924 12 Nov Chaplain at Colwich
1925 26 Sep Assistant at Dowlais
1926 5 Jun Incumbent at Easingwold
1937 Sep Retired to Ampleforth
1938 Jan Assistant at Warwick Bridge
1939 Dec Returned again to Ampleforth
1942 28 May Oulton as 'supply' for sick chaplain
1944 11 Dec Returned to Ampleforth
1948 1 Dec Collapsed in choir after compline & remained unconscious