Fr Benedict Williamson

Father Benedict Williamson was born William Edward Williamson in Hackney on June 6th 1868 to a stern Scottish Presbyterian father and a non-conformist mother. He studied law for a time and then trained as an architect in the office of Newman & Jacques in Stratford. In his teens he developed a strong social conscience and a deep interest in politics, but in his early 20s he resolved that “his politics should be those of the Gospel.” He was received into the Catholic Church in 1896 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, Mayfair where he took the name Benedict Williamson.

For the first ten years of his working life he practised as an architect, in partnership with John Henry Foss at Williamson & Foss, during which time it is believed that he designed the figures for Reredos for St Edmund’s Parish Church, Southwold. He designed more than 22 churches over a period of 35 or so years, many in and around London and mostly in the Romanesque style. The Late Gothic concept of the Sacred Heart Church Southwold is unusual, though not unique. In 1903, he designed a development of St Michael’s Abbey in Farnborough in the style of Solesmes Abbey in France, whose exiled monks had founded Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight.

1906

He designed the Church of St Boniface in Tooting for the Archdiocese of Southwark. The original inspiration for the Church came from Tre Fontane Abbey in Rome. The foundation stone was laid on 17the November 1906 and the Church, still unfinished, opened for worship on 18th April 1907. St Boniface was the last Church he designed before entering the Beda College in Rome to study for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1909 in the Archdiocese of Southwark, but continued his architectural work whilst serving as a Parish Priest at Earlsfield and then Cobham. 

1911

He designed St Ignatius Church, Stamford Hill, London, for the Jesuits and, in 1912, St Casimir’s Lithuanian Church in Bethnal Green. In the same year he was appointed for the Diocese of Northampton, as well as Parish Priest at the Sacred Heart Cobham, and it was in this role that he designed our Southwold Church. Whether there is any connection between the dedication of our Church and that of Fr Williamson’s Parish at the time is a matter of conjecture. 

1917

Fr Benedict became an Army Chaplain and served on the Western Front with the 47th and 49th Divisions. Known by the nickname ‘Happy Days’ on account of his unquenchable optimism, his comrades regarded him as “the most zealous of priests, the most human of men” and he was always in the most forward positions “inspiring the living and comforting with his faith the parting moments of many a dying soldier”. He was gassed a number of times and his health suffered. 

Following WW1

Fr Benedict returned to both Parish and architectural duties. In 1922, he designed Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Fulham, London and, inspired by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb that year, incorporated Egyptian patterns into the interior design of the Church. Subsequently, in 1927, in collaboration with his original partner John Foss, he added Egyptian designs to the completion of St Boniface’s Church in Tooting. Fr Williamson designed a number of churches outside London, including St Thomas of Canterbury and, in 1912, Our Lady Star of the Sea in Portslade, which had some similarity to our own church in Southwold but was sadly demolished in 1992. In addition to his prolific architectural output and his work as a Parish Priest, Fr Williamson published at least twenty-six books covering an array of topics, such as: Architecture, Theology––including a considerable number of devotional works on St Therese of Lisieux––History and Biography, as well as works on Supernatural Mysticism and the Virtues of Love. He was a friend and supporter of St Elizabeth Hesselblad and he worked to revive the Bridgettine order of monks. It has been suggested that he was one of the inspirations for G K Chesterton’s famous fictional Priest detective, Fr Brown; and he was also Editor of the now defunct Catholic Review. Fr Williamson died in Rome in 1948 at the age of 80.