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When parishioner Richard Miller provided us with this picture of St Andrew's
presbytery of unknown date - with, presumably, a former parish priest
standing in the doorway - we asked the question "Does anyone know who this
priest is?"
After comparing the picture with others taken of the presbytery at the
turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, we came to the conclusion that this
photograph was the oldest. And, on the assumption that we were correct,
this narrowed the identity of the priest down to two - either Fr Joseph
A Barker who served at St Andrew's between 1895 and 1914 or Fr Francis J
Gillow who was at Cottam between 1886 and 1895.
But which one? The odds against us being able to identify the
priest for certain seemed stacked against us - or at least they were
until a descendant of the Gillow family, Keith Gillow, who is currently
the IT Manager for the Mathematical Institute at the University of
Oxford and Fr John-Paul Sanderson came to our aid.
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Fr John-Paul, a monk at Mount St Bernard's Abbey in Leicestershire
and
also a descendant of the Gillow family, confirmed
that the priest in the doorway of St Andrew's presbytery is in fact Fr
Francis J Gillow (who would later become a Monsignor) and he kindly sent
us the picture on the right for comparison.
Fr John-Paul has a special interest in the priests in his family and he
has traced no less than 39 to date!
A nice local connection is that Fr John-Paul was born in Fulwood,
Preston, brought up in Lytham St Anne's and he was a student of Fr
Adrian Towers at both Upholland and Ushaw colleges. |
Mgr Francis
John Gillow |
Thank you Keith and Fr John-Paul for solving the mystery for us. |
