We have to record the loss of a very able and zealous missioner, Fr Austin Wray, who died at Abergavenny, after a brief illness, on March 2nd of this year. He was then in his 68th year (born at Gt. Marlow, July 31st, 1851) and would have kept the jubilee of his clothing with the habit next September. But he had not the look of an old man. When last he came to Ampleforth, the drawn cheeks, their pallor and leanness, suggested illness rather than age. One was somewhat surprised to find him as vivacious and interested and, in the chapter discussions, nearly as impossible as ever. The remark generally made was that he looked run-down. To the writer he seemed to be worn out, the pathetic sight of a willing beast of burthen breaking under the strain of work and nearing its end. Perhaps a long rest might have saved him for a while. But he could never rest. He would have laboured and worried himself in holiday-making quite as effectually as over his missionary work.
As a boy he was quiet, very orderly and almost invariably first in his class - by dint of serious, steady work. He had no showy gifts and greatly admired such qualities in others. We thought him rather disputatious and critical, but, at the same time, appreciative and good-natured - a boy conscious of his own limitations, without a taint of jealousy in his nature. Then, as afterwards, he was always ready to champion weakness, defend a foolish cause, take sides with a minority and constitute himself someone's or something's unexpected partisan. His sympathies were rarely with the authorities, but he, personally, was dutiful and submissive, and it was said of him that he had never broken a rule. We did not think him eccentric. His tastes and habits were like those of other boys and, afterwards, of the rest of his brethren. But he was unusual and liked to be thought an original. His pose of singularity, however, though to outsiders an unwelcome and disagreeable one, to those who knew him well, was merely a source of fun and amusement.
He was a man of very few friends - outside the poor of his district. Yet he was very warm-hearted. The writer remembers well a class-room scene, when he made an answer which the master declared to be a wrong one and inexcusable. He ventured to dispute the decision and with some show of reason. In the course of the argument he became aware that the master had something to say for himself and was nearly, if not quite, right in his decision. He was prepared to concede the point, but here Fr Austin took up the cudgels in his defence. He did so in such vehement fashion that the affair terminated in a 'row.' It was then that Fr Austin first came out with his characteristic phrase, 'I will have to reconsider my position.' One suspected then and afterwards that Fr Austin's heart, rather than his head, guided him in very many of his judgments. There were some things - and some persons - that no one must question or criticise except himself. In his later life, it was in the martyr's spirit, heedless of what it cost him in unpopularity and blame, that he stood up for his Faith and his Church, for his Alma Mater, for his poor, for old customs, old ideals, old convictions, old friends, against every attack, justifiable or otherwise, from the open enemy or the candid friend. It was this, essentially amiable, quality that often made him so difficult. But he was by nature a little too ready to differ and take offence where no contradiction or offence was intended.
After his ordination (Feb. 24, 1877) he went to Fort Augustus, then in its beginnings. He was happy enough there - he really loved the place - till Prior Vaughan's unmethodical and unbusiness-like habits got on his nerves. He was removed to the mission at Cleator in 1879. From that date to the day of his death, he gave himself up, heart and soul, to pastoral work. His rectors, at Cleator (1879-1884, 1889-1890), at Ormskirk (1890-1891), and at St Mary's, Warrington (1892-1894), reckoned him the most trustworthy and devoted of curates, so much so that the Provincial of those days brought him back from Bedlington (1884-1889) to Cleator, and afterwards Ormskirk (1890-1891), and from Hindley (1891-1892) to Warrington because of a demand for his services as coadjutor. The last years of his life he spent at Abergavenny. There he was devoted to his people that he never took even a brief holiday. His recreation was in the variety of his interests, and his ambition was to keep up his strenuous labours to the end. God gave him his desire. He was buried there on March 6th, 1919. His poor will not easily forget him. May he rest in peace!
CHARLES AUSTIN WRAY 2 March 1919
1851 31 Jul Born Gt Marlow
1864- Educ Ampleforth
1869 28 Sep Clothed
1870 30 Sep Professed
1872 29 Jun Minor Orders Belmont Bishop Brown
1874 8 Mar Subd Ampleforth Bishop Cornthwaite
1875 18 Sep Deacon
1877 24 Feb Priest
Fort Augustus
1879 Cleator
1884 Bedlington
1889 Cleator
1890 Ormskirk
1891 Hindley
1892 St Mary's Warrington
1894 Abergavenny
1919 2 Mar Died at Abergavenny of pneumonia
6 Mar Buried at Abergavenny