THE RE-FOUNDATION OF FARNBOROUGH ABBEY IN 1947

 THE RE-FOUNDATION OF FARNBOROUGH ABBEY IN 1947: A STUDY IN ARCHIVAL HISTORIOGRAPHY  

Rev. Nicholas Paxton  

 

The intention of this article is to emphasize the importance of archive research by illustrating the connection between such research and historiography. The subject chosen for this purpose is the re-foundation from Prinknash in 1947 of Farnborough Abbey, together with some aspects of Farnborough's life before it became an independent priory in 1980. In order to shed new light on the story this article is based entirely on material in the Prinknash, Farnborough and Storrington archives, along with some personal information and an account of its church written from personal observation only. Secondary sources are eschewed altogether. Archive references are as precise as possible, though the use of unclassified archives can, of course, mean that the heading, origin, date and present whereabouts of a document may have to suffice in some instances. The example of Monsignor David McRoberts (a distinguished former Keeper of the Scottish Catholic Archives), for whom 'history was not merely a matter of documents: he had a keen eye for the importance of objects as historical evidence,'1 makes clear that our appreciation of the Catholic Church's cultural patrimony should be based on artefacts as well as papers. We will therefore begin with a description of the Farnborough abbey church in terms of its being unique in its purpose and highly untypical of nineteenth-century Gothic design in England, and look next at the circumstances which made it necessary for Prinknash to re-establish Farnborough and at the work of re-foundation itself. To clarify the picture, we will then look at five important aspects of the new community's life at Farnborough: the financial position; the maintenance of the services in the church; the building-up of the archives and new library; the different sorts of farming which formed so much of the community's labour; and the re-founded abbey's progress towards independence. THE ABBEY CHURCH Farnborough Abbey was founded by the Empress Eugenie of the French (1826-1920), after the deaths of her husband and son. It was to be both a mausoleum for them and (eventually) for herself, as well as a functioning church with a household of clergy to offer Masses and prayers for the imperial family - much like the Escorial in  

1 Anon., 'The Right Rev. Mgr. David Canon McRoberts', in The Catholic Directory for Scotland 1980 (Glasgow, 1980), p. 383; see also Circular Letter of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church N. 14/06/4 in Catholic Archives 27 (2007), pp.3-6. 

 her native Spain. The abbey church, designed by H.A.G.W. Destailleur (1822-1893) of Paris, and built between 1883 and 1888, is of Bath stone, cruciform, and in the French Flamboyant Gothic style. Its dome, which Eugenie seems to have wanted to be added in imitation of the Invalides in Paris (Napoleon I's mausoleum), is slightly out of period with the rest of the design, being in Renaissance style. It is nonetheless a striking sight, surmounted by its lantern. The church has an aisle-less nave of three bays. The arches have no capitals: instead, vaulting and pillars die into each other. The transepts are each of one bay only, like those of the crypt beneath, and the crossing area is under the dome. The sanctuary ends in a five-sided apse, its walls and ceiling painted and gilded. The sanctuary ceiling culminates in a gilt crown of pendants set over the high altar. The apse windows are rose windows, as is that over the main door at the other end of the church. The large transept windows have completely plain glass; this is useful for letting a lot of light into the church. From the left of the high altar a staircase leads down into the Imperial Crypt, which is underneath the crossing, transepts, sanctuary and sacristy. The Imperial Crypt has two parts: a square area with single-bay transepts on either side (under the church's crossing and transepts) and an apse (under the sanctuary). The imperial family's tombs are placed in the former. In contradistinction to the Flamboyant Gothic of the church, the crypt's style is Romanesque, though one wonders whether some of the ornamentation - such as the elaborate capitals and the carved bosses of the vaulting in the transept - may not be rather too late for the style. The tombs of Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial - Eugenie's husband and son - are in the transepts, while Eugenie's own tomb is between them at one end of the crypt, on a ledge above an altar. THE BACKGROUND TO THE RE-FOUNDATION The offer to re-staff Farnborough from Prinknash in 1947 was made by the Subiaco Congregation (then known as the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance) in England in order to stop Farnborough Abbey being abolished altogether.2 Allowing the abbey to continue would mean that the obligations of Masses and prayers for the Bonaparte imperial family (which the Empress Eugenie had imposed as part of her foundation of the abbey) could continue to be fulfilled, as well as enabling the house eventually to regain autonomy. Since the mid-1920s Farnborough's earlier Benedictine community of monks of the Solesmes Congregation had experienced a continuing fall in numbers. Farnborough was placed temporarily under Abbot Gabriel Tissot of Quarr, who sent Father Aelred Sillem to Farnborough as local superior, after  

2 Letter, Abbot Taylor of Ramsgate to Father Peter Conway of Farnborough, 10/10/1946, in Prinknash Abbey Archives, hereafter PAA; D.P. Higham & L. Hogg, 'Chapters of the History of St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough' (hereafter Higham & Hogg), File 1, p. 34, in Farnborough Abbey Archives, hereafter FAA.

 the retirement in 1941 of Farnborough's second abbot, Bernard du Boisrouvray.3 It appears that the main reason for the lack of an abbatial election was that the Abbot of Solesmes, who had to preside at such elections within the Solesmes Congregation, was unable to come to England for the purpose at the height of the Second World War.4 On 5 September 1946, Tissot wrote from Quarr to Abbot Adrian Taylor of Ramsgate (Abbot Visitor of the English Province of the Subiaco Congregation) that the Solesmes Congregation's General Chapter held two months earlier had decided that that Congregation could no longer maintain Farnborough. The General Chapter had laid on Tissot himself the task of finding a solution, particularly since the obligations imposed by the Empress meant that the Solesmes Congregation could not simply have the abbey shut down altogether by Rome.5 The reason for the seemingly uncompromising attitude of the French Congregation is unclear. It is true that Farnborough's fall in numbers had been caused by the deaths of numerous monks and the community's failure to attract both new French vocations to England and enough English vocations to allow it to perpetuate itself at its previous level. Thus Tissot - in a letter to Abbot Upson of Prinknash in September 1946 - stated that, after some departures from the community in the event of a takeover from Prinknash, there would only be eight priests 'with a high average age' and two other monks. Furthermore, the capacity of the dwelling quarters was forty-five monks, excluding the novitiate-cum-juniorate, which could house the novice master and eight others.6 However, it is also true that, according to the late Father Francis Isherwood (formerly the Portsmouth diocesan archivist), there were still seventeen priest-monks on the Farnborough community list in 1947, although Isherwood's list includes two whom Tissot excluded from his reckoning, as well as the names of Tissot and Sillem. Moreover, some of the monks were to prove long-lived: Father Peter Conway and Father Leopold Zerr, who stayed on at Farnborough after the 1947 suppression and re-foundation - though without joining the Subiaco Congregation - were still there in 1956, and Conway only died (albeit elsewhere) in 1973. Again, du Boisrouvray, despite having retired in 1941, did not die until 1970. Also, not all the Farnborough monks were elderly in 1946: the Farnborough annalist records separate visits to the abbey by Fatherr Austin Delaney and Father Henry Lindeman, monks of the former community, as late as 1977 (leaving aside the presence at Quarr of Father Joseph Warrilow and  

3 Personal information from Brother Leander Hogg. 4 Personal information from Brother Leander Hogg; see also E. Moreau, 'Ephemerides de Farnborough 1895-1936', copy in FAA, entry for 3/5/1924. 5 Letter, Tissot to Taylor, 5/9/1946, PAA & FAA. 6 Letter, Tissot to Upson, 5/9/1946, FAA; 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, PAA. The latter document is unsigned, but its author appears to have been the Prior of Farnborough at the time, Father Basil Robinson

 Father Maurice Waterman, who were the last monks to die of the Solesmes community at Farnborough).7 Moreover, as we have seen, the lack of an abbatial election in 1941 was, at least primarily, not caused by the reduction in the community's numbers. Thus the community, though in decline, was not moribund in 1946. One comment is particularly worth recording here. According to a handwritten paper headed 'Farnborough' in the Prinknash Abbey Archives, Father Dyfrig Rushton, later Abbot of Prinknash, stated in 1952 that, once the Congregation of Solesmes had resolved to give Farnborough up, the Farnborough community asked to transfer to another Benedictine Congregation, and the monastic observance of the Congregation of Subiaco was nearest to that of the Solesmes Congregation. Other documentary sources in the Prinknash archives confirm the accuracy of Rushton's recollection.8 Thus the question arose as to which abbey should provide monks for Farnborough. Though Prinknash was already taking steps to re-found Pluscarden in Morayshire, Abbot Taylor observed that the preparation of the Pluscarden buildings for occupation would take some time and that Prinknash had an overflow of monks. These monks, formerly at Bigsweir House near the River Wye, were by this time at Millichope Hall, near Craven Arms in Shropshire, on which the lease was coming up for renewal. The task of replacing the Farnborough monastic community therefore fell to Prinknash; and, while the Prinknash monks at Millichope were content there, they said that they too were prepared to do all they could for Farnborough.9

 The Chapter Meeting of the Subiaco Congregation's English Province held at Ramsgate in 1946 had envisaged accepting the French community at Farnborough into the Province. However, it soon emerged that a much neater, more workable and quicker solution would be to close down the Solesmes Congregation's abbey altogether in favour of a re-foundation from Prinknash. Several of the French community suggested this solution to Abbot Upson of Prinknash on 29 October 1946, and Upson wrote to Tissot on 14 November, from a General Chapter of the Subiaco Congregation at Parma, saying that that Chapter had approved of a re-foundation of Farnborough by 

 7 Enclosure with letter, Isherwood to Father David Higham, 30/8/1985; Annals, FAA, entries for 8/12/1970, 16/4/1973, 18/6/1977, 15/8/1977. 8 Letters, Tissot to Upson, 5/9/1946, FAA; Tissot to Taylor, 5/9/1946, PAA & FAA; Tissot to Upson, 16/9/1946, FAA; Upson to Taylor, 15/10/1946. See also Higham & Hogg, File 1, p. 33; 'Memorandum for Prinknash re-the proposed transfer of Farnborough Abbey to our English Province', (1946); 'Memorandum re-St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough', Upson to Tissot, Michaelmas Eve [28/9]/1946; W. Upson, 'Statement on Saint Michael's, Farnborough', 6/7/1958, all PAA. 9 Memorandum, Upson to Tissot, 28/9/1946; handwritten paper headed 'Farnborough'; Letter, Upson to Sillem, 14/10/1946, all PAA; Higham & Hogg, File 1, p. 3

 Prinknash.10 Accordingly, Abbot Germain Cozien of Solesmes (as head of the Solesmes Congregation) petitioned the Vatican for the suppression of the French foundation at Farnborough. On 6 February 1947 the Congregation for Religious issued a rescript suppressing it. However, Rome stipulated that the French abbey's suppression should not take effect until the Prinknash monks had arrived at Farnborough; it further specified that they were to do this by 29 April. So, on 10 March, Cozien (whom the Vatican had delegated to put the suppression into practice) endorsed the suppression, making it take effect when the Prinknash monks had taken over.11 THE PRINKNASH MONKS' WORK OF RE-FOUNDING FARNBOROUGH The first superior from Prinknash at Farnborough was Father Bede Griffiths (who later became well known as the head of a Christian ashram in India). Griffiths arrived at Farnborough with a group of monks on 28 April 1947. The first page of the Subiaco community's annals (in the Farnborough Abbey Archives) gives the first list of officials under him. The next month three removal vans arrived at Farnborough from Millichope with church benches, cases of books, 'scriptorium and art stuff, etc.'12 

 One of the new community's other monks was Father Benedict Steuart, who had been a monk of the Congregation of Solesmes at Farnborough for fourteen years before transferring to that of Subiaco. In the annals for 19 May 1947 we read: 'It is a strange experience for Fr. Benedict to be here again after the lapse of 21 years.' On 25 May (Whit Sunday) 1947 the monks who had arrived from Prinknash officially took over control of Farnborough from the Solesmes Congregation: Griffiths officially succeeded Sillem as local superior; and (on behalf of the Holy See) Upson succeeded Tissot as Apostolic Administrator. More monks arrived from Prinknash soon afterwards: the final total was between twenty-five and thirty, including nine priests.13 FINANCE In describing Farnborough's assets to Upson, Tissot was careful to distinguish between property belonging to the Imperial Foundation and property which the French community had acquired during its tenure of the abbey but which was not part of the Foundation. Briefly, the Foundation consisted of some twenty-seven acres of land, 

 10 See also 'Note', Upson to Sillem, 30/10/1945 (sic, evidently for 1946); Telegram, Sillem to Upson, undated; Letters, Sillem to Upson, 1/11/1946; Upson to Sillem, 2/11/1946; Upson to Tissot, 2/11/1946, 14/11/1946; Agreement, Upson and du Boisrouvray, 16/1/1947, all PAA. 11 Petition, and endorsement of suppression, from Abbot Cozien; Vatican rescript (Prot. No. 208/47), 6/2/1947; Letters, Sillem to Upson, 9/2/1947; Upson to Sillem, 20/2/2947, all PAA; Higham & Hogg, File 1, p.36. 12 Annals, FAA, entry for 14/5/1947. 13 Enclosure with letter, Isherwood to Higharn, 30/8/1985; Higham & Hogg, File 1, p. 4

 £23,000 worth of investments, the church and house, and such furniture as the church and house had had at the abbey's establishment as a Benedictine monastery in 1895,14 after eight years as a Premonstratensian house founded from Storrington.15 As Rushton noted in 1959, the Foundation had 'two trusts founded by the Empress Eugene (sic) -The one for the upkeep of the buildings, the other for the support of the community.'16 The French community's own property at Farnborough comprised sizeable assets: thirty-eight acres of land; investments worth about £29,000; some housing yielding about £335 annually; the monastic library and all house and sacristy furnishings brought in after 1895 'except what would be considered as replacement.'17 One clause over land which caused later difficulties was: 'The French congregation retains for the present the ownership of the lands acquired by the former community of Farnborough but yields their free use to Prinknash' (ibid.). The Farnborough archives from between 1949 and 1964 testify that a protracted dispute later arose over the terms of the use and purchase of such land by the Prinknash community, though a compromise was eventually reached on the terms of the sale.

 In 1956 the total value of the abbey's assets was £60,863, excluding the church and house and their contents (all of which were together insured for £250,000), and some twenty acres of land other than the gardens and farm. On the other hand, the abbey's liabilities in the same year totalled £15,565; and, working on a figure of £250 per head per annum, the 1956 cost of living for the community was £6,250. The community expected to have an income for 1956 of £6,500 from sources other than trades such as farming, printing and bookbinding, and the different trades which the community practised seem to have made a total profit of at least £600 that year. But the financial situation was clearly difficult and unsatisfactory in terms of ready money, particularly since poor management at the farm meant that it lost £3,120 over two years. It would seem to have been at about this time that Prinknash felt obliged to lend  

14 'Memorandum for Prinknash re-the proposed transfer of Farnborough Abbey to our English Province', datable to late 1946, PAA. 15 On the Premonstratensian period at Farnborough, see especially: Grant of faculties from Bishop Vertue of Portsmouth to Father Francis [Laborde] of Farnborough, 23/4/1889; Notice of forthcoming Sixth Diocesan Synod of Portsmouth, Vertue to Farnborough; Proceedings of General Chapter of the Premonstratensians at Frigolet, France, with signature of Father Joseph Ibos, Prior of Farnborough, 27-30/8/1890; Circular re-restraint on visits between priories, Abbot Paulin of Frigolet to his congregation's houses in Great Britain, 1/10/1891, all in Storrington Priory Archives. 16 Letter, Rushton to Robinson, 10/ 12/1959, PAA. See also letters: Rushton to M.H. Penty, Solicitor, 7/12/1959; Arnold, Fooks, Chadwick & Co., Solicitors, to Robinson, 7/3/1960; Fooks, Chadwick & Co. to Rushton, 7/3/1960, all PAA. 17 Higham & Hogg, File 1, p. 

 Farnborough £15,950.18 In 1958. Upson noted that he had reported the situation to a Diet (i.e. a meeting of the Abbot President and Abbots Visitor) of the Subiaco Congregation at Afffligem on 5 September 1957.19 However, a profit was being made in 1956 on Farnborough Court, which was 'a Guest House for permanent guests, chiefly retired people who wish to live near the monastery.'20 That year only one flat was un-let; when this too was let, Farnborough Court was expected to make a clear profit of £1,000 annually. THE CHURCH FURNISHINGS AND SERVICES The church at Farnborough benefited from a munificent gift in the late 1940s: hand-coloured lithographs of the Stations of the Cross by Sir Frank Brangwyn RA arrived at Farnborough on 8 April 1948 'and were placed on exhibition in the cloister.'21 According to the Prinknash archives, they were set up in the church there before the end of February 1950. In 1949 the position of the monks' choir stalls was changed to the first bay of the nave, instead of using stalls in the transepts, along with those in the apse which Destailleur had designed. Again, a 1951 renovation of the organ provided a suitable time to move it to a former side-chapel. Though the organ was later restored to its original position behind the altar, the arrangement of the liturgical choir, as it stood in 1956, was insufficient for the growing community. A change of arrangement was being contemplated which would allow for up to forty-five monks in choir, while the seating capacity of the rest of the nave was estimated at 150.22 In the event, the abbey's lay choir, founded in 1966, later moved behind the main altar, before moving to stalls in both the transepts where there had previously been transept altars.23 Under the terms of an agreement which du Boisrouvray and Upson signed in January 1947, the maintenance of the church services "was facilitated by the French community's gift of the contents of the sacristy and linen-room, save for such items as  

18 Upson, 'Statement on Saint Michael's, Farnborough', 6/7/1958; 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, pp. 6ff., both PAA. 19 Upson, 'Statement on Saint Michael's, Farnborough', 6/7/1958, PAA. 20 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, pp. 6ff., PAA. 21 Annals, FAA, entry for 8/4/1948. 22 Higham & Hogg, File 1, p. 43; Anonymous typescript (author identified by Brother Leander Hogg as Father Hildebrand Flint), 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough', undated but datable to 1980/1981, hereafter Flint, 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough', PAA. 23 Annals, FAA, entries for 21/4/1972 and 8/2/1976; Flint, 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough'.

 it - or individuals among its members - might wish to keep.24 As to the services themselves, the obligation to pray for the souls of the imperial family consisted of four High Masses a year, two Low Masses every week and 'a number of suffrages' (that is, of prayers for the dead).25 These are mentioned periodically in the Farnborough annals. In the entry for 5 April 1950 the annalist writes, 'Pontifical Absolutions for Napoleon III after Sext'. On 9 January 1973 the Bishop of Portsmouth, Derek Worlock, sang the commemorative Mass for the centenary of Napoleon Ill's death before the Bonaparte family (Prince Napoleon, his wife Princess Alix and their son Prince Jerome) and representatives of the French Embassy and the Foreign Office. On 1 June 1979 the centenary Mass for the Prince Imperial took place amidst the displays of a flower festival which was in progress in the church at the time. In 1979 the annalist recorded that although 11 July was the Empress Eugenie's anniversary, it had to be kept on the following day because 11 July is also the Feast of St Benedict; however, the anniversary was duly observed on 12 July, and the celebrant of the Mass wore the chasuble made in 1920 for her funeral. Abbot du Boisrouvray was also remembered: the Conventual Mass on 6 December 1971 was a Requiem to mark his first anniversary.26 Meanwhile, the daily round and the common task of a monastery's liturgical life continued. The Feast of the Transfiguration had its First Vespers broadcast from the abbey in August 1947, and Farnborough's daily Community Mass and choir office are mentioned in the Prinknash archives.27 However, the Farnborough annalist records that on 25 May 1967 there was no Corpus Christi procession, probably the first such omission for a long time. THE ARCHIVES AND LIBRARY As part of instructions from Cozien to Tissot of 16 October 1946, the archives of the Solesmes Congregation abbey at Farnborough were earmarked for removal without the possibility of their being left in situ. The Abbey of Solesmes therefore now has twelve files of Farnborough archives.28 However, one MS which is now at Solesmes ('Ephemerides de Farnborough 1895-1936'), being the diary of Brother Emile Moreau, one of the Farnborough monks, has a bound photocopy in the Farnborough archives  

24 Agreement, Upson and du Boisrouvray, 16/1/1947, PAA. 25 'Memorandum for Prinknash re-the proposed transfer of Farnborough Abbey to our English Province', PAA. 26 Annals, FAA, entry for 6/12/1971. 27 Annals, FAA, pp. 12, 13, 16; 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, PAA, p. 2. 28 Personal information from Brother Leander Hogg.

 authenticated in 1986 by a flyleaf note of Farnborough's prior of the time. Other archive diaries of first importance, this time in the originals, are those from 1911 to 1949 of Father Peter Conway, whose continued presence at Farnborough after the re-foundation explains why the Farnborough archives still contain his diaries. The archives also include a typescript selection of material from the Conway diaries by Father David Higham and Brother Leander Hogg. As with any editorial work, their choice of material can appear a shade unexpected at times: for example, they omit the full account by Conway (who was acting as guest-master at the time) of Ronald Knox's stay at Farnborough, and of Knox's reception into the Catholic Church there on 22 September 1917. However, their work is both a valuable tool for first-time readers of Conway's work and an important vademecum for those who do not wish to have to read the diaries in full. The archives also contain papers of Donald Christie, a Farnborough novice monk of the 1930s, as well as material relating to the compilation of Higharn and Hogg's unfinished 'Chapters of the History of St. Michael's Abbey, Farnborough'. While the research for this work did not really include archive material from Solesmes,29 the Farnborough archives include the work's typescript in two files. As one would expect, these archives provide a wealth of material from after 1947, of which the community annals and the correspondence with Prinknash are the most important for our purposes. In the event, the Solesmes Congregation also reserved to itself the French community's library under the terms of du Boisrouvray's and Upson's agreement of 16 January 1947. Upson understandably wrote that he would prefer its removal before the advance party's arrival from Prinknash. So the transfer of this library in 1947 raised the difficulty of how to move the books out before the Prinknash community moved in.30 From Sillem's letters to Upson of the 22 and 28 February 1947, it seems that the this library was removed to Quarr and from there distributed among different Benedictine abbeys of the Solesmes Congregation. The new community brought in some books, probably not more than two thousand,31 from Prinknash and - as we have seen - from Millichope, as the basis for building up a new library. FARMING AND CRAFTS The considerable majority of the community re-founded from Prinknash did manual labour on the abbey farm and vegetable garden. Farm labour is constantly mentioned in the early pages of the community's annals. The vegetable garden's produce was mainly for domestic use, though the monks sold the surplus. Fruit was provided by the abbey orchards. A lot of money had to be spent on restoring the farm  

29 Personal information from Brother Leander Hogg. 30 Letter, Sillem to Upson, 22/2/1947, PAA. 31 Personal information from Brother Leander Hogg.

 with a view to eventually making the abbey self-supporting, presumably because most of the monks of the French community had undertaken primarily academic and intellectual work instead. Additionally, while bee-keeping was also practised, we can amplify our picture of this aspect of the life of the Prinknash community at Farnborough from its dairy, poultry and silk farming.32 As to dairy farming, the abbey farmer in 1947, Brother Louis, was a monk of Clervaux, Luxembourg, and Sillem undertook to try to persuade the Abbot of Clervaux to leave him at Farnborough to run the farm while the new community settled in.33 He does not seem to have succeeded: the Farnborough annals record Brother Louis as leaving on Whitsunday 1947. Father Bede, in thanking Brother Louis for his work, said that he had 'worked the farm single-handed for 20 years.'34 At this time the cows numbered seven or eight and were mainly red polls. According to the annalist, they "have reacted very badly to T.B. Tests, so we have decided to get rid of them and go in for Guernseys, as at Prinknash.' The dairy farm was finally given over to lay management in 1969 as the result of a fire the previous year.35 While the dairy farm's purpose was to provide the community with milk, poultry farming was done primarily to raise money. In 1951 there were 700 birds; by September 1956 this had increased to 1,200, but one problem was succinctly described in a 1951 comment in the Prinknash archives: 'Foxes! Four in broad daylight.' By March 1961 the demand for poultry from the abbey for eating purposes had almost completely disappeared, and Brother Edmund Fatt therefore stated that he would stop poultry farming.36 The poultry farm ceased to operate at about the same time as the dairy farm passed out of the monks' hands. Silk farming also took place as an activity of the Prinknash monks at Farnborough. Its purpose was apparently to produce silk for vestment-making. According to the annalist, one monk (Brother Edmund Fatt) had got back from Ireland 'laden with silk worms' on 7 September 1948. However, while the silk was of sound quality, and this 

 32 Upson, 'Statement on Saint Michael's, Farnborough', 6/7/1958, PAA; 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, PAA; Higham & Hogg, File 1, p.41, FAA; Annals, FAA, pp. 5-9, entries for e.g. 21/4/1972, 1/5/1972. 33 Letter, Sillem to Upson, 22/2/1947, PAA. 34 Annals, FAA, pp. 5-6. 35 Annals, FAA., p. 9, 10/6/1947; see also 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, PAA; Flint, 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough'; Annals, FAA, entry for 19/7/1969. 36 Letter, Fatt to Rushton, 7/3/1961, PAA

 work still made a profit in 1955, the post-war availability of cheap artificial silks eventually made it uneconomic.37 The smaller number of monks who did not labour on the farm were those with good capacities for art and for specialized crafts such as printing and bookbinding, who worked at those instead. The abbey's commercial work in arts and crafts was concerned mainly with woodcarving. It seems that bookbinding was re-started in 1955. The printing press at Farnborough, started in 1952, was not making any profit in 1956. It was expected to break even that year; but, after six years of printing, the final profit figure for 1957 was only £80, whereas the machinery had cost £4,400. Printing had stopped at Farnborough by November 1959, though Father Hildebrand Flint noted in 1980-1981 that photo-typesetting without printing had since been done there.38 Even so, different types of farming and crafts remained essential to the life and work of the new community of monks at Farnborough, who were finally to be successful in bringing about its return to autonomy. TOWARDS A NEW AUTONOMY Although Father Bede Griffiths became Prior rather than merely Superior in 1949,39 it remained clear that Farnborough was still under Prinknash, both canonically and for practical purposes. Moreover, the situation was unpromising: in 1951 the Chapter of Prinknash unanimously asked that of the Subiaco Congregation's English Province to free Prinknash from its obligations with regard to Farnborough, principally because it felt unable to provide Farnborough with more monks or more money. While 'this petition was submitted to the Curia [of the Abbot President of the Subiaco Congregation] by the Provincial Chapter', the Curia handed down a negative answer,40 and despite Upson's view that the community's condition was unsettled in 1951, the Subiaco Congregation's English Provincial Chapter resolved that Farnborough should become independent of Prinknash within ten years. 41 As Prior from 1951 to 1958,  

37 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, PAA; Flint, 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough'. 38 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, p. 8; Upson, 'Statement on Saint Michael's, Farnborough', 6/7/1958; Letter, Rushton to Fatt, 14/11/1959, all PAA; Flint, 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough'. 39 Letter, Upson to Griffiths, 6/4/1949, FAA; Higham & Hogg, File 1, p.45. 40 Upson, 'Statement on Saint Michael's, Farnborough', 6/7/1958, PAA; see also Acts of the English Provincial Chapter of the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance, held at Farnborough 5-7 May 1951, FAA, p. 3. 41 Acts of the English Provincial Chapter of the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance, held at Farnborough 5-7 May 1951, FAA, p. 2; Upson. 'Statement on Saint Michael's, Farnborough', 6/7/1958, PAA.

 Father Basil Robinson (otherwise known as the son of the cartoonist Heath Robinson)42 did some important work in unifying the community and raising its morale. But the financial position remained very precarious. Although the Farnborough community still had twenty-two monks in September 1956 (of whom eleven were priests), together with a choir postulant and a 'regular choir oblate',43 staffing the abbey seems to have become a problem by early 1960, when Father Raphael Davies (Prior from 1959 to 1961) expressed regret over the shortage of able-bodied monks there. Again, of the recruits to the monastic life who entered Farnborough, fewer stayed the course than their superiors had hoped. No entirely Farnborough-trained monk made his solemn vows until 1977, though two others soon followed him.44 Nevertheless, the community heard on 18 June 1969 that the Abbot President of the Subiaco Congregation had, with his Council of Visitors, approved the raising of Farnborough's status the week before to that of a simple priory, which gave it a greater degree of autonomy from Prinknash. Farnborough was formally constituted as a Priory by decree of the Abbot President in July 1969.45 (One way that the community marked this event, despite having resolved to continue with the white Prinknash habit in 1956, was a decision to wear the black Subiaco habit instead.46) On the last day of 1969 the Farnborough annalist wrote: 'The year ends with a deep sense of gratitude for the advance of our community towards independence during the year 1969.' In November 1978 Father Anscar Nielsen retired as Prior of Farnborough.47 Abbot Rushton, himself intending to retire the following Easter, took the view that the Farnborough community was ready to become autonomous.48 And so we leave the  

42 Personal information from Father Basil Robinson. 43 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956, PAA, p. 1. 44 Letters, Davies to Prinknash, 30/1/1960, p. 2 and 12/2/1960, p. 2; Flint, 'St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough1. 45 Annals, FAA, entry for 18/6/1969; Decree of the Abbot President (Prot. No. 779/69), PAA. 46 'Statement from Farnborough Abbey', 11/9/1956; Letter, Anscar Nielsen (Prior of Farnborough) to Rushton, 13/8/1969, both PAA; Annals, FAA, entry for 13/8/1969. 47 Annals, FAA, entry for 30/11/1978. 48 Letter, Rushton to Higham, 18/1/1979, PAA; Annals, FAA, entry for 17/5/1979, see also under 24/5/1979.

 community on the eve of attaining in 1980 the status of a fully independent monastery, for the first time since 1947. Great credit is due to the monks sent to Farnborough from Prinknash in and after 1947, who had striven hard in re-founding an abbey with a famous past. CONCLUSION This article has shown how the contents of three monastic archives, a first-hand description of a church building and some material obtained by the oral transmission of history can be used - without recourse to any secondary sources - to chronicle and clarify the suppression and re-foundation of an individual monastery in 1947, in the context of its development from 1946 to 1979. In doing so it has emphasized anew the close relationship between archival research and historiography. As and when archivists wonder to what extent their labours are worthwhile in the conservation and organization of records, and perhaps even think Ts it all worth it?', this article may also merit consideration by way of encouragement. Editorial Note: Father Nicholas Paxton is a member of the Salford Diocesan Archives team.

 

(This fascinating article is from "Catholic Archives 2009 Number 29 The Journal of The Catholic Archives Society)