Born in 1766 at Wesham, near Kirkham in Lancashire, John Bernard Robinson was professed at St. Laurence's Dieulouard, in the Priorship of Dom Jerome Coupe, 13 January, 1788. He had as a companion Dom Anselm Appleton, the first Prior of Ampleforth. Ordained priest in 1791, he was sent on the English Mission in the North Province the year following, so escaping the terrors of the Revolution which scattered his Community and led to the imprisonment of several of its members. Placed at Felton Park in Northumberland, which, like Swinburne Castle and Cheeseburn Grange, was a chaplaincy of the Riddell family, he served it and the surrounding district for twenty five years. In 1827 he was transferred to Aberford, in Yorkshire where he spent sixteen years, and in 1843 to Rixton, near Warrington. There he died 9 October 1851, at the age of 85, having spent nearly sixty years in the apostolic field. From 1818 he had been a member of General Chapters as Cathedral Prior of Ely.
John Thomas was born in London in 1814 and came to College during the Priorship of Fr. Adrian Towers (1830-1834), which followed the secession of Prior Burgess in 1830. He received the habit in 1834, taking the name of Basil, and made his profession with several others in 1836. Advanced to the priesthood in 1838, he went on the Mission in the same year to Cowpen, in Northumberland. After nearly seven years there he was moved to St. Peters Liverpool, in 1845. His career here was but brief, for in a letter from Prior Cockshoot to President Barber, dated Ampleforth College, July 30th, 1845, (MS.240, No.23) we read 'Mr. Thomas of Liverpool has expressed an inclination to return to Ampleforth, and in the course of a few days Mr. Jackson will learn his actual dispositions. Could he return it would be unnecessary for us to be dependent on a foreigner, for he could teach Dogmatic Theology very well'. One Don Honorato, he stated, had lately left, returning to Rome. Dom Basil did return and remained till 1850, when he went on the Mission again, to Lawkland, near Settle in West Yorkshire. In a letter from there of April 19, 1851 (MS.262, No.144) to Fr. Bede Swale, at Birtley, he refers to the solitude and poverty of the place. As he did not live to be forty years of age, it is possible that he was not robust and found the climate unsuitable. After two years at Lawkland he passed to the South Province and was placed at Chideock in Dorset, a Chaplaincy of the Weld family. He survived this move to more genial surroundings but one year, dying 7 September 1853
Francis Arkwright was born at Blackburn in 1830 and came to Ampleforth in 1840, during the Priorship of Fr. Anselm Cockshoot. In 1846 Fr. Ambrose Prest succeeded Fr. Cockshoot as Prior, and at the General Chapter of 1850 Fr. Wilfrid Cooper began his lengthy Priorship of nearly thirteen years. From him Francis received the habit as Br. Dunstan in 1851, and on November 20th of the following year he was professed. His own life was destined to be short, but he had as companions in his novitiate three who all lived to old age, Wilfrid Brown, Paulinus Wilson and Romuald Woods. On April 10th 1854 he was ordained Subdeacon by Bishop Briggs, to die only five months later on September 12th. Though not the first to be buried in the hill-side cemetery, he was the first buried there who died after it was opened. The laying out and planting of the hill-side was begun by Prior Cockshoot in 1844, while Br. Dunstan was in the school. Some ten years after this Prior Cooper closed the old cemetery at the West end of the back garden and opened the new one. (Abbot Prest's Reminiscences [Ampleforth Journal 6 1901 p297]. Here he reinterred those who had been buried in the older one. Three of these, Fr. Jerome Coupe (+1827) Fr. Bernard Clarkson (+1839) and Fr. Clement Rishton (+1836) were buried in one grave at the East end. Two others, Fr. Bernard Ryding (+1841) and Fr. John Turner (+1844) were Edmundians, who retired from the mission to Ampleforth and died there. These and Br. Clement Gibson, who met an early death soon after his profession in 1846, were buried separately. Their resting places, for many years indicated by humble crosses of wood, have recently (1945) received more lasting monuments of stone carved by members of the Community. ['1945' is in the MS]
N.B. Date of death from heading of this text was 18 (not 12) Sep 1854 (But Willson 4's records p6, Birt p151 & our own mlib necrology have date of death as 12 Sep 1854 therefore could 18 have been incorrect?)Only two years after the early death of Br. Dunstan Arkwright another young and promising monk followed him. This was Bro. Placid Styles, who was born in Liverpool in 1833 and entered the school in 1847. He had as class-mates Bishop Hedley, F. Oswald Tindall and Fr. Benedict Murphy. The Bishop in the funeral oration he preached on Fr. Laurence Shepherd, tells of the influence Fr. Shepherd had upon them, first as their Prefect and later as their Novice Master. Their names all occur as prize winners in an account of the Exhibition of 1853, given in the pages of The Student, the second of the series of School magazines preserved in our archives. They received the habit on October 17th 1854, and made their profession on November 10th in the following year. Their professor in Philosophy and Theology was Fr. Austin Bury, who in the summer of 1848 had returned with Br. Laurence Shepherd from St. John's Abbey, Parma. There under the learned abbot Bianchi they had for three years drunk deep of Thomistic Theology, forty years before its general revival at the orders of Pope Leo XIII. (MS. 262, Nos.91-2, 105, 111-116).
Br. Placid's enjoyment of these inspiring influences was all too brief. He received Minor Orders on May 17th 1856, but did not live to be advanced to Major Orders. Ill health, seemingly consumption, obliged him to leave the Monastery for a change. On July 31st he writes to Prior Cooper (MS. 234, No.48) from Carlow, Ireland, 'My friend tells me that I have certainly improved, in appearance at least. My cough still remains with me...The doctor is adverse to my return but I suppose it will be necessary. Will you please therefore say what you will have me do'. He returned; but before three months were over he died on October 15th, 1856, lamented by his Superior and brethren. He was the second to be laid to rest in the hill-side cemetery.
Edmund Rowley was born at Netherton, Liverpool in 1836, and came to Ampleforth in 1845 with his brother Austin, who became a Secular priest and was stationed at Louth in Lincolnshire as late as 1895. Another brother, James, born in Dublin in 1834, was educated at St. Edmund's, Douay, clothed as Br. Benedict and professed there in 1855.
Br. Wulstan received the habit in 1855 and was professed by Prior Cooper, December 23rd, 1856. On June 6th, 1857, he was advanced to Minor Orders by Bishop Briggs, and only a year later he died on October 1st, at Rainhill, Liverpool. Within the short space of four years he was the third monk of St. Laurence's to end his days while still a Junior.
Scarcely a year elapsed from the death of Br. Wulstan Rowley before God called a Laurentian in the early days of his priesthood. This was Fr. Ignatius Callaghan, born at Gormanstown, Co. Meath, Ireland on April 17th, 1829. He was to College in 1841, the same year as did William Prest, who thirty years later was Prior of Ampleforth and died Abbot of St. Mary's York in 1903. He received the habit on 23rd of December, 1847, and was professed with Brs. Placid O'Brien and Maurus Anderson on February 17th, 1849. On November 30th of the same year he received Minor Orders, and the Subdiaconate the day following. He was ordained Deacon the next year, on December 13th, but was not advanced to the priesthood till April 10th, 1854. He seems to have had but indifferent health and left for the Mission soon after his ordination. He was placed at St. Mary's, Liverpool. Before completing the fifth year of his labours there, he died on March 31st, 1859, at the early age of thirty.
The year 1860 was one of exceptional loss to the familia of St. Laurence's, no less than four of mature age dying in the mission field. Of these, three were born in 1801, and one just twenty years earlier. The first to be called was Christopher Shann. He was born at Knaresboro' on March 9th, 1801, and was in the school at Ampleforth by 1815. Three years later 1818, he took the habit at the hands of Prior Burgess as Brother Austin on December 22nd, and on December 23rd of the following year, 1819 he was professed with five others, Brothers Ambrose Prest, Jerome Hampson, Oswald Orrell, Bede Smith and Ignatius Greenough. Five years later, on 18 December 1824, he and Br. Ambrose, though only twenty-three years of age were ordained priests, and both of them left the Monastery for the Mission almost at once.
Fr. Shann's first appointment was to Scarisbrick Hall, Lancs, which Abbot Allanson in his Account of the Missions served by the E. Benedictines p.74, says was accepted in 1824. After two years there he returned to Ampleforth for three years; and in 1829 he was again placed on the Mission, this time at Morpeth in Northumberland. The year 1831 found him again in his monastery, and from it serving the Brandsby Mission. Four years after this we find him in the South Province in charge of St. Gregory's, Cheltenham. Here he spent five years from 1835 to 1840. This was followed by two years at Bath as Assistant to Fr. Maurus Cooper. From there he returned to the North Province. After two years at Aigburth, 1842-43, he was at Little Crosby for seven years, the longest period for which he remained at any one Mission. From 1850 to 1853 he was again at Aigburth for three years, then at St. Anne's, Edgehill for part of two and at Brandsby for part of one. In 1854, he returned to Lancashire serving Ormskirk for four years and finally Little Crosby again for two. There on April 25th 1860, he passed to his reward. During the 36 years of his priesthood he was moved 14 times, twice to his Monastery and 12 times to different Missions. From 1846 to 1854 he was Definitor of the North Province and in 1854 was made Cathedral Prior of Norwich.
A scrupulous but deserving man. Was buried at the chancel end of the burial ground attached to St. Mary's church. (Little Crosby). After his death Mr. Blundell was notified by Provincial Allanson that, owing to lack of priests, the Benedictines could no long serve Little Crosby.
James Sheridan was born in Navan, Co. Meath, Ireland, in 1801. He was not educated at Ampleforth but came as a postulant in 1834. Admitted to the habit in that year during the Priorship of Fr. Bede Day, he took the name of Joseph. On March 5th. 1836 he was professed, and in the three succeeding years he received Minor Orders, the Subdiaconate and the Diaconate, the latter on December 31st, 1839. By dispensation he was ordained priest the following day, being shortly to enter his fortieth year. This may account for the fact that his stay in the monastery was brief, and that in 1841 he was placed in the Mission at Birtley, Co. Durham. Here he did good work for nearly ten years. Allanson in his Account of the Missions [p77] relates:-
In 1850 he was transferred from Birtley to St. Mary's, Liverpool. Here a difficult task awaited him. Fr. Austin Wilkinson, who had been in charge of St. Mary's' from 1836 and in 1845 had replaced the old chapel in Edmund St. with Pugin's noble Church in Tithebarn St. (later moved stone by stone to Highfield St.), had inevitably laid the parish under a heavy burden of debt. Allanson (op.cit. p.68) writes; 'The cost of this undertaking amounted to about £15,000 and the schools cost upwards of £2,400. The debt on the Church in 1850 amounted to £7552 and the debt on the schools was £1,600.'
Thus, though the one debt had been halved, and the other reduced by one third, there remained a heavy financial burden for the new Incumbent to shoulder. Letters in our archives (MS.262, No.158 and 161), of June 1851, tell of uncertainties in the accounts of St. Mary's when, in 1850, Fr. Wilkinson left for Wrightington, and of claims in consequence made against his personal estate when he died in the following year. This is confirmed by a letter of Provincial Allanson (MS. 244, No.11), dated Swinburne, February 17th, 1860, and addressed to President Burchall. Referring to a sum of £200 called the Woolton Fund, the interest on which was due to be paid by the Incumbent of St. Mary's to that of Wilton, he writes 'Mr. Phillip's bill of poverty [Nov. 1848] stated that he had received St. Mary's interest for four years, £32. It is probable he received interest again in May 1850, although, as far as I can learn, St. Mary's accounts (such as they are) are silent upon it. It is certain Mr. Phillips did not receive interest in November 1850,as Mr. Sheridan most unjustly repudiated the debt, both capital and interest.'
This was a singular and highly reprehensible method of easing his own burdens, and unfortunately it does not stand alone. A memorial presented to the General Chapter of July 1854, by Fr. Ignatius Abram of Netherton (Procurator of the North Province 1844-68), petitions that 'the Incumbent of St. Mary's (Fr. Sheridan) be ordered to pay the interest of £1 due respectively to Netherton, Ormskirk, Brownedge, and St. Peter's, Seel St. Liverpool arising from a legacy of £100 by Margaret Kaye left in Trust to the incumbent of St. Mary's in 1831, and hitherto paid regularly, a liability he denies and refuses to meet.' (MS. 263, No.11)
We may presume that an injunction from General Chapter brought the erring Incumbent to a better mind, though the fact is not recorded. In other matters beside finance his lot at St. Mary's does not seem to have been altogether a happy one, as least in his later years. This revealed in another letter (MS.244, No.1) from Provincial Allanson to President Burchall, of July 11th, 1860. Incidentally it furnishes an example of the difficulties Provincials and Presidents were liable to encounter under the old regime. The Provincial writes; 'I received a letter from Mr. Sheridan yesterday requesting me to remove him or his two assistants as they cannot live together. This request must be attended to and I propose to be in Liverpool next week. We shall hold a council at Seel Street on Thursday. But I am at a loss to find out what is best to be done. Mr. Lynass is unwilling to have Mr. Drumgoole and I shall be unwilling to compel him until he has established himself in his new position. (Whitehaven) Can you furnish me with a subject from any of the Convents and then we will place Mr. Drumgoole at Ormskirk - but pray don't send me any more Irish'.
Whether from despair for the situation or under the influence of higher aspiration, Fr. Sheridan, only a week after the request for the removal of his curates, announced to his Superior that he proposed to remove himself. The Provincial writes on July 19th:- 'I have received a letter from Mr. Sheridan informing me he has already arranged to enter the Cistercian Order at Mount St Bernard's; and that he wishes me to provide a successor in his place as soon as possible. I presume he has already settled about leaving the Body with you, or otherwise the proceeding is quite informal. This is the first intimation I have received from him about his leaving, as far as I am concerned I shall not oppose it.' (MS.244, No.11)
The several problems of this perplexing situation were solved in an unexpected but effective manner by Fr. Sheridan's death, on October 8 of this same year. God gave him rest from all his labours and a solution to all his difficulties.