Father Augustine Richardson died on the 29th February, 1928, after an illness of two months, at the age of 36. The life of a monk - and especially a life so short as his - leaves very little to chronicle in the way of outward events. Much, it is true, could be written on his personal character: and yet that would be an even more difficult task. He was of us; and the final result must appear a very one-sided picture to those who knew him from so many different angles.
He was born at Tadcaster on April 23rd - St George's Day - 1891, and came to Ampleforth in 1906. His influence over his contemporaries soon made itself apparent. Intellectually he was not brilliant: there were other boys in his class with much greater ability: but he had a good head and an exceptional power of work, and he maintained an all round level which kept him nearly always at the top of his class. His chief bent was mathematical, but the number of different prizes he carried off is witness to the variety of his interests.
As an all round athlete he was only moderate: a useful, if not a stylish bat, a fair football player, and when we started Rugby in 1911 he was the first Captain. But there was one brilliant exception: he was a really great boy bowler, and it is probably true to say that there has been no one at Ampleforth to equal him since. His bowling was of medium to fast pace with a natural off break, and he could maintain a perfect length for uncannily prolonged periods. None of those who have seen him bowl will ever forget his peculiar but effective delivery. One summer in the Craticulae matches he bore the brunt of the bowling for the whole tour, while still a boy in the School.
It is a singular tribute to his character as a boy that his success in every branch of school life in no way spoilt his relationship with his contemporaries. Not merely was he generally popular in the School, but he had an unusual capacity for friendship. Indeed he was almost unique in this respect. He was always the accepted leader of his class, the obvious man to 'vote on' to any position that was going - from Captain of the School to Secretary of a debating Society, - and yet at the same time he was the chief personal friend of some half dozen members of his class, and indeed, right up to his death he was in constant touch with them. There was no one reason for the unique position he thus occupied among his contemporaries. He was somewhat older than the rest of his class, and that undoubtedly gave him a certain standing. But mere seniority is not by any means an invariable guarantee of affection and respect, least of all in school life, and I think it was his normality, his honest simplicity, his absolute lack of any kind of show or parade, that gave him so many friends. His simplicity was his most attractive quality - a simplicity which often led him to a form of innocent boasting, so free from real egotism and pride that when it brought on him a good deal of chaff, his cheery, though puzzled patience lasted far beyond the ordinary limits of human endurance. Perhaps if one tries to analyse further the secret of his extraordinary companionableness, the real reason will be found to lie in his power of sympathy, not so much in the more emotional sense of the word, but in his readiness to listen to the every day experiences of others, and the unaffected interest that he took in the expression of their opinions and the story of their own small doings. He had more of neighbourly charity than most people, but he also had more of sheer human interest in others.
In 1911 - the last year of his school life, - he was elected Captain (almost unanimously), and he was the last to hold this position, as in the following year the monitorial system was introduced at Ampleforth.
The monastic state and the priesthood had always been his ambition since his first entry into the School, and so he went straight to the Novitiate at Belmont, where he was three years under the care of our late Novice Master, Fr Bernard Hayes. From the first he entered on his monastic duties with fervour and determination. Perhaps in those earlier years of his religious life there was a certain boyishness about him which suggested at times a somewhat care-free attitude to life and his outspoken simplicity, never checked by timidity or cunning, was not always tempered with the tact which only experience could teach. But as the years went by the earnestness of his spiritual life became more and more apparent. From time to time he occupied many busy positions in the monastery - Sacristan, Master of Ceremonies, Guestmaster, and finally in 1926, House Master of St Aidan's House, and he showed a great power of adaptability and was always able to throw himself wholeheartedly into whatever he had to do.
But there is no doubt that his primary interests were always those of the priest and the monk. His chief intellectual interests were the Catholic problems of the day; among his many duties he never failed in his regular attendance at choir, and his piety was the most striking feature of his last illness. It was not simply a resigned acceptance of spiritual ministrations, but eagerness for the things of God. It was a visible joy to him when he was told that he could receive Holy Communion every morning as Viaticum, and I think that his chief anxiety was that someone should say with him every day the prayers for the sick. He asked for a Missal in order to read the Mass prayers of the day, but he found the effort of prolonged attention too great for him. About a fortnight before his death he told one of his brethren that he was indifferent to death or recovery; all he wanted was the Will of God: his only grief at the thought of death, was the sorrow it would cause to his mother. The end came unexpectedly, just as we were beginning to hope that all real danger was over. At midnight on Saturday, February 25th, he lost consciousness: he never recovered, but passed away on the following Wednesday, fortified with the Rites of Holy Church. His mother was with him to the end.
To all who knew him, the memory of Fr Augustine will remain imperishable - the memory of his bright and cheerful personality with its quaint admixture of high laughing gaiety and almost mournful solemnity: the memory - and the more intimately one got to know him the more clear that memory will be - of his solid, practical virtues and of his deep rooted love of God.
The School at large will remember him as a painstaking master, an effective teacher of Mathematics, to whom, for some years past, many a backward Mathematician owes his success in Lower and School Certificates; or again as an encouraging guide and a practical counsellor to any promising cricketer; his House will remember him as a kind, House Master, always genuinely interested in their welfare, both individually and as a whole; and the Community will remember him as an inspiring model and as a real brother, who never allowed his own particular cares and duties to interfere with an individual and personal interest in the other members of his monastic family.
May he rest in peace.
GEORGE AUGUSTINE RICHARDSON 29 February 1928
1891 23 Apr Born Tadcaster
1906 Sep to Jul 1912 Educ Ampleforth
1912 5 Oct Habit at Belmont
1913 6 Oct Simple Vows
1914 1 Nov Minor Orders
1917 6 Jan Solemn Vows Ampleforth Abbot O Smith
1918 9 May Subdiaconate Woolhampton Bishop Cotter
1919 29 Apr Diaconate
1920 30 May Priesthood Ampleforth Bishop J Vaughan
1914-18 At Oxford
Taught at Ampleforth
1926 Sep Housemaster (St Aidan's)
1928 29 Feb Died at Ampleforth