Canon Francis Dobson
1909 - 1991
from… the Bentwood News in 2009
This year marks the centenary of the birth
of Canon Francis Dobson, a much loved priest of the Diocese. He
was born at Hall Farm, in Goldhanger on 4 June 1909...
Hall Farm in
the early 1900s
His family later moved to Great Whitmans
Farm, Purleigh, His father's family was
originally Lancashire Catholic, while his mother was a convert, received into
the Church at Maldon in 1906 by the then Parish Priest, the celebrated
liturgical scholar, Dr Adrian Fortescue.
Francis Dobson was educated at the
Ursuline Preparatory School, Brentwood, and the Salesian School, Farnborough.
Fr John Petit, Parish Priest of Maldon (and later Bishop of Menevia),
recommended him as a student for the priesthood and in 1924 Bishop Doubleday
sent him to Ushaw College, Durham. Writing to Bishop Doubleday, just before
Francis Dobson's ordination at Maldon on 24 July 1932, the President, Monsignor
Brown, recommended him with these words: “He is a good young man and I feel
sure he will make you a good priest; he has always been a most satisfactory
student. I wish I could send you a dozen like him.” After a short supply at
Southend-on-Sea he was appointed as assistant priest at Colchester. In 1938 he
was appointed Parish Priest of Stock and part-time Secretary to Bishop
Doubleday, also assisting Canon Wilson in the Finance Office at Bishop's House,
Brentwood.
During the Second World War he served as
an A.R.P. warden in Stock. In 1951 Bishop Beck entrusted him with the task of
establishing the Brentwood Diocesan Travelling Mission. In his black Austin
motor car Fr Dobson visited those parts of rural Essex most distant from a
Catholic church and celebrated Mass in a variety of halls, private homes and
even public houses. He then served as Parish Priest of Warley (1956-1958),
Shoeburyness (1958-1965), Westcliff-on-Sea (1965-1972) - during which time
(1966) he was appointed a Canon of Brentwood - and Kelvedon (1972-1986), where
he built a chapel-of-ease at Tiptree.
A true son of Essex, he always served in
the Essex rather than the London part of the diocese, and he was greatly
attached to the Catholic heritage of his native county, publishing short
studies of the history of two of the parishes he served (Westcliff-on-Sea and
Kelvedon). He also collected material on the history of his own family, was a
keen gardener, and loved to acquire all the latest gadgets. In 1986 he retired to
the Convent of the Little Company of Mary at Westcliff-on-Sea, and thereafter
moved to nearby Nazareth House where he died on 12 January 1991. He is buried in the Catholic Cemetery at
Stock.
From… 1914 Kelly’s Directory
for Goldhanger...
George Dobson and John
Dobson, farmers, Street farm.
(Church street was previously called “The
Street”, and the farm like many others had previous
names)
At the outbreak of WW1
George Dobson was also tenant farmer of Gardeners Farm on the Maldon Road,
which was used as the Goldhanger “flight
Station” during WW-1. This picture could be either the young Francis Dobson
who would have been seven years old in 1916, or his brother James…
The picture would have been taken between 1916 and 1919
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from…
http://www.stock.org.uk/history/twentieth-century.htm
In 1938 Father Davidson was succeeded by Father Francis Dobson….
One night a badly damaged Lancaster came down near Fristling Hall. All the crew but the rear gunner had got out safely. Father Dobson went to the crashed aircraft and gave the last rites to the dead man. Some time later he had to go to a meeting with some other priests, where he met a priest from Lancashire in whose parish was the fiancée of the young man who had died in bomber.
from… http://englishmartyrswithholytrinity.org.uk/parishhistory.html
The English Martyrs Catholic
Church, Danbury
…before 1961 the only provision of Mass had come from the Diocesan Travelling Mission under the care of Canon Francis Dobson. The Canon was familiar with the area as his grandfather farmed near Purleigh Village. The nearest church had been in Chelmsford and it was said that travelling by horse and cart, his beard froze on Danbury heights!
from… https://www.dioceseofbrentwood.net/news/vintage-documentary-gives-unique-insight-diocese-past/
“An amateur documentary film made in the 1953 entitled The Priest,
featuring Fr [later Canon] Francis Dobson of the Brentwood Diocesan Travelling
Mission based at Stock, has been posted online by the British Film Institute”.
A video version is at... https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-priest-1953-online
...this is 22 minutes long and there are several priests in it. Francis
Dobson is believed to be in the film between 10:15 and 11:50 minutes in from
the start and is shown with his car.
The Goldhanger British Legion Hut built after WW2 in Fish
St. was used for a period the 1950s for monthly Catholic services. It was
almost certainly Father Dobson who took these services as part of his
Travelling Mission.
from… http://stefangillies.wordpress.com/the-altar-at-kelvedon
A booklet entitled: “St Mary Immaculate and the Holy Archangels - Parish History”, by Canon Francis Dobson 1910-1991…
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from… Essex Recusant, Volume 17, Essex Recusant
Society., 1975
A booklet entitled: “One
Hundred Years at Kelvedon”, by Canon Francis Dobson
from…
http://www.stjosephshutton.org/pdf/stjoseph060113.pdf
Parish of St. Joseph the
Worker, Hutton, Essex - “We pray for those whose anniversaries occur at this
time especially... Canon Francis Dobson 1991”
from…
http://www.ingatestoneparish.org/html/anniversaries.html
This Weeks
Anniversaries: Sunday 12th ... Canon
Francis Dobson
from… www.holyfamily-church.co.uk/download/.../BaptofTheLord120114.pdf
newsletter for the Holy
Family, Benfleet: “please pray for the
departed whose anniversaries occur in January... Canon Francis Dobson”
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While based at Kelvedon, Fr
Dobson was largely responsible for the creation of the Tiptree Chapel of Ease
now known as the St John Houghton Chapel…
the chapel was a self-build
project by a large group of parishioners and was opened in 1980
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http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/6th-august-1982/8/news-in-brief
The Catholic Herald, 6th
August 1982…
Canon Francis Dobson has been presented with a free trip to Rome in celebration of his golden jubilee year by his parishioners at Kelvedon, Essex.
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Posted on a Facebook Group in 2016 by Fr Stewart Foster, Priest,
Diocesan Archivist and Historian at the Catholic Diocese in Brentwood...
CANON
FRANCIS DOBSON (1909-1991)
Francis Dobson was born at Hall Farm, Goldhanger,
near Maldon, Essex, on 4 June 1909, the second of three children of John Dobson
(d.1933), a farmer who was originally from Farington, near Preston, Lancashire,
and his wife Elizabeth (nee Lofthouse), a native of Longridge, near Preston. In
1906 the soon-to-be Mrs Dobson had been received into the Church before
marriage by the renowned liturgical scholar, Father Adrian Fortescue, who was
at that time the priest at Maldon. The Dobsons
were among the earliest parishioners at Maldon. As a widow, Mrs Dobson re-married in 1942 (to
Thomas Taylor) and she died in 1973.
Francis Dobson was baptised at Maldon on 9 June 1909
in the original Church of The Assumption (subsequently the parish hall) and was
confirmed by Bishop Bernard Ward, the first Bishop of Brentwood, at Brentwood
Cathedral on 24 June 1917. It was one of the first confirmations held by the
newly-appointed Bishop, and in fact the Diocese of Essex (erected on 22 March
1917) was not officially established at Brentwood until 20 July 1917. The
future Canon Dobson always took great pride in his Lancashire origins, his
Essex birth and his being a true son of the Diocese of Brentwood from its
inception. His brother James was Bishop Ward's first train-bearer in 1917. The
Lancashire Dobsons were related to the Corbishley and Richmond families, likewise
staunch Catholics, and all three families gave sons to the priesthood.
As a child Francis Dobson suffered from polio, and
although he made a good recovery, at the age of nineteen he required remedial
surgery on his legs. From 1914 to 1919 he was educated at the Ursuline Convent
Preparatory School, Brentwood, which stood opposite the Cathedral and behind
what was then Bishop's House (the school, known as the Grange, is now the
Ursuline Convent itself). He was thus eight years old when the Diocese of
Brentwood was established. From the Ursuline School, were he was described as
'the perfect pupil', he went on to the Salesian College, Farnborough
(1919-1924).
On 10 June 1924 Bishop Doubleday accepted him as a
student for the Diocese of Brentwood, having had the recommendation of Francis
Dobson's parish priest at Maldon, Father John Petit, later Bishop of Menevia.
On 20 September 1924 he began studies at Ushaw College, Durham, where the his
professors described him as 'a real good sort.' Writing to Bishop Doubleday on
10 July 1932, just before Francis Dobson's ordination to the priesthood,
Monsignor Brown, the President of Ushaw, said; ' He is a good young man and l
feel sure that he will make you a good priest: he has always been a most
satisfactory student. I wish l could send you a dozen like him.'
Francis Dobson was ordained as a priest by Bishop
Doubleday in the recently-completed Church of The Assumption, Maldon, on 24
July 1932. After supplying at Southend-on-Sea from August to October, on 24
October 1932 Father Dobson was appointed as an assistant priest at St
James-the-Less & St Helen, Priory Street, Colchester, from where he came to
know and love the many villages of North East Essex that fell within the
boundaries of the parish. On 1 July 1938 he was appointed as Parish Priest of
Stock, where the Catholic place of worship had recently moved from the chapel
at Lilystone Hall to the converted schoolroom in Mill Road (where it still
stands). He also acted as part-time Secretary to Bishop Doubleday at Brentwood,
assisting Canon Wilson in the Finance Office for three days per week. This work
gave him invaluable knowledge of the diocese, especially rural Essex which was
to be so important a field of his priestly labours.
In 1939 Father Dobson was appointed as Diocesan
Chaplain to the Guild of Catholic Teachers and throughout the Second World War
he served as an ARP (Air Raid Precaution) warden in the village of Stock. In
1950 he was appointed as a Trustee of the Diocese of Brentwood, a position he
held for thirty-five years.
Father Dobson's chief pioneering work centred upon
the Diocesan Travelling Mission. On 4 June 1951 Bishop Beck appointed him to
take charge of the newly-established DTM while still residing at Stock, which
parish was henceforth to be looked after by Father Verity from neighbouring
Ingatestone. In his black Austin motor car Father Dobson became a familiar
figure in the more remote parts of Essex as he celebrated Mass in village
halls, public houses and private residences. The DTM subsequently acquired a
purpose-built Mass van. In the days before private cars were common and when
ordinary people living in rural areas found it very difficult to get to Sunday
Mass, the Church came to them, literally.
In June 1955, when the DTM was confided to the care
of the Edmundian Fathers who took up residence at Stock, Father Dobson took
charge of Holy Cross & All Saints, Warley, near Brentwood, where he also
acted as Catholic Chaplain to the adjacent large Mental Hospital. On 27 August
1958 he became Parish Priest of St George & The English Martyrs,
Shoeburyness, and on 12 September 1965 he was appointed to Our Lady Help of
Christians & St Helen, Westcliff-on-Sea (where the assistant priest at that
time was Father Thomas McMahon, the future 6th Bishop of Brentwood). In
November 1966 he was appointed as a Canon of the Brentwood Cathedral Chapter.
While at Westcliff he presided over the centenary celebrations of the
post-Reformation re-establishment of the Catholic Church in the Southend
district, an event in which he took great pride and for which he published a
booklet giving historical information.
On 14 November 1972 Canon Dobson was appointed as
Parish Priest of Kelvedon. He was responsible for building a church hall at
Tiptree, which had been one of his ports of call in DTM days, and the building,
which was erected chiefly by the men of the parish, was dedicated to one of the
Essex Catholic Martyrs, St John Houghton, Prior of the London Charterhouse and
the Proto-martyr of the Reformation in England (1535). Canon Dobson was now
back in rural Essex and very near to his boyhood home and in the countryside he
so loved. Indeed, in fifty-four years of active ministry in the Diocese of
Brentwood he always served as a priest in Essex and never in London.
At Kelvedon he continued his pursuit of Essex
Catholic history and continued to attend meetings of the Essex Recusant Society
(Brentwood Diocesan Historical Society). He published a short history of the
Kelvedon Catholic parish and collected material on his own family. His other
passions were gardening and the purchase of the latest gadgets for home and
office. in 1986 Canon Dobson retired to the Convent of the Little Company of
Mary, Westcliff-on-Sea, and thereafter to nearby Nazareth House, Southend-on-Sea,
both places being within his former parish at Westcliff. He died at Nazareth
House on 12 January 1991. Following a Requiem Mass at St Helen,
Westcliff-on-Sea, he was laid to rest in the Catholic cemetery at Stock.
the Diocese of Brentwood owes Francis Dobson an
immeasurable amount. RIP.
Finally, while at Kelvedon, Fr Dobson told the following story to a visiting Goldhanger resident…
His parents told him that they went on their honeymoon from Hall Farm in a pony and trap. Several days later on their return to the village, they found the road back to the farm alarmingly blocked by a large crowd on villagers. On approaching, they discovered that it was a “welcome home” party.
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