JOHN HALL

On the 10th of April,in Easter week, the oldest member of St. Lawrence's, Br. John Hall, peacefully surrendered his soul into the hands of his Maker. For several years he had been waiting for death, neither longing for it nor fearing it, wishful to go on living as long as God should will it, but conscious of its near approach and ready, to meet it cheerfully when the summons came to him. During the past five or six years he had suffered at times intense but in the intervals between the paroxysms, he was so much his old quiet unobtrusive self that one was tempted to think him on the way to complete recovery. This he never believed possible, nor, perhaps, did he wish for it. It would be an exaggeraition to say he rejoiced in his sufferings - there were moments when the pain seemed to him more than he could bear - but he never prayed nor hoped to be relieved of them. Indeed, he grew to the conviction that God was lengthening his life mercifully to shorten his Purgatory, and that it would be no use to him to go on living if he were freed from pain.

He was eighty-four years of age when he died. He was born, therefore, in the year 1828, and took the habit of a lay-brother in the year 1855. But he was only professed as an Oblate, making his vows from year to year. During this long life in Religion he had been that best and most useful member of a monastic home, the monk who has no ambition except to do as he is bid. He took up a duty and laid it down again with equal serenity at a word from his superior, and was just as happy and contented doing menial work as when he was managing the farm or had charge of the stables. What he undertook he did with conscientious care and with wise intelligence. He loved Ampleforth and had no interests outside its walls. At no tme did he seem to have need or desire for a holiday or change. Once, he was young, his mother, a servant in the Royal household, sent for him - it was in 1851 during the Great London Exhibition - and he stayed for a week with her in Buckingham Palace. The wonder of the sights he saw on that great occasion never faded from his memory. Only one amusement had an attraction for him, and that was an occasional hour on the hill-side with a gun after the rabbits which, if left in peace, would have become a pest. This was the one brief, occasional distraction of his later years. For the rest, his life was just an admirable observance of the monastic routine, - hours of earliest prayer mingled with hours of useful work, sweetened and sustained and sanctified by a wonderful devotion to the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. R.I.P.

Ampleforth Journal

We have just had news of Br. John Hall's death. For some years he had been awaiting the end of his sufferings with never-failing cheerfulness and patience. He was a model of obedience, trustful and unemotional. When his health and strength began to fail him and his superiors found it necessary to relieve him of his charge of the stables and the horses to which he had for many years given devoted care, some difficulty was naturally felt in speaking to him about it. It was thought that the good lay-brother would feel intensely the removal from his charge. Timidly he was advised of its necessity. Then Br. John revealed a secret that no one had ever guessed. The work he had seemed to take so great a delight in had from the first been distasteful and a burthen to him. He said simply he was glad, very glad to be relieved of it. He had been waiting and hoping for release all the while. What with the railway station and the guests he was mixed up too much with the world. A quiet bit of work in the garden was what he liked best and would be best for his soul. He had only taken up the duties in obedience to the will of his superior. To be asked to lay them down again was a real joy to him.

His thoughts and his intimate conversation were invariably concerned in some way with his duty to God and the life to come. His remarks, however, on these as on all subjects were spiced with bits of quaint Yorkshire humour. We remember him once expressing his wonder at the thought of the happiness .of the next life and the fact that he might dare hope to have a share in it. What was he that God should be mindful of him ? Then, making fun of his own unworthiness, he remarked that he didn't kriow what he would, do in Heaven when he got there. He was good for nought. He couldn't sing. And if there were no Horses in Heaven he wondered what God would find for him to do.

Another winter's day — the frost was the most severe for many years, forty-odd degrees at Malton and below zero at the College — he was driving back from Gilling with one of the community and the talk wavered between Purgatory and the fierce cold. "It is bitter cold," said his companion. " Aye, but it will be worse than this in Purgatory." " Would you like to be there now, John." He answered ; "I would jump in straight if I had the chance. I tell you what, sir ; I'd walk stark-naked to Yearsley Moor and back (about twelve miles) if I could get into Purgatory at the end of it — aye, and no spirits allowed on the way." Br. John was just old enough to have seen Prior Towers engaged in his open-air controversy with the Oswaldkirk parson in the early thirties of last century. Fr. Towers addressed the mob from a wheelbarrow. The one thing that stuck in the boy's memory was the inspiriting cry of encouragement from the Prior's adherents each time his adversary slackened. " Nip him " ; " Nip him now, sir " ; " Nip the parson well " — as though they were watching a dog-fight or drawing a badger.

Of other outside structural alterations or additions during Fr Whittle's Priorship, the only one to be chronicled was an extension of the farm buildings carried out under a new farm bailiff, of the name of Barnard, who succeeded John Richardson. Barnard was not a Catholic and was not altogether satisfactory. After a year or so his place was taken by a Mr Unsworth, but as he too was not very successful it was determined to put Brother John Hall in charge.

As a young man, before coming to the monastery as a lay-brother, he had been in the employ of a farmer of very high reputation, Mr Wylie of Brandsby, and had acquired a good general knowledge of farm management. His years of service as coachman under three successive Priors had brought him into touch with local conditions and persons of all degrees, which gave him a measure of popularity in the neighbourhood and indirectly helped him in his responsibilities. Upon his suggestion the Beacon farm was taken on lease, and, though not very good land as a whole, it went far to make good some of the deficiencies of the Mill farm for the few years that we retained it.

Letter from Julian Buxton (O 31), 1976

In 1912 the Ampleforth Journal noted the death of an aged lay brother-John Hall. Father Paul Nevill used to tell the story of how he saw Brother John's body being put into the coffin and an old monk said to him 'Look at those feet. They are not the feet of an ordinary working man'. It was reputed that Brother John was the son of a Royal Duke and a Catholic girl from Bransby. The Journal records how he visited his mother at Buckingham Palace where she was a servant.

A few weeks before Father Gregory Swann died I asked him which Royal Duke was Brother John's father. He at once repliedrTt was not a Royal Duke. It was a reigning Sovereign—either George IV or William IV. Since the Journal gives the date of Brother John's birth as 1828 I feel the problem of his paternity has been solved.

The various references to him in the Journal show what a splendid and very saintly character he must have been. I therefore felt that these facts should be preserved for posterity.

Details from the Abbey Necrology

John HALL [Oblate L]		10 April 1912
               
1828		Born
		In Rel: 57
1912	10 Apr	Died at Ampleforth Abbey age 84