The case of the tarnished napkin ring: rediscovering Dr William Francis Park (1906–1950)

Shortly after my return to the Venerable English College as Academic Tutor, I was given a tarnished silver napkin ring engraved with the name W. F. Park.

“He was your predecessor some time before the Second World War”, said the person who gave it to me. Unfortunately, he was unable to tell me anything more about the original owner of the ring. My interest was piqued, however, and I resolved to solve the mystery.

The natural place to start in my research was the Liber Ruber, the record kept in the College archive of every man who has started to study for the priesthood at the College since its foundation in 1579. I was able quickly to identify the napkin ring’s original owner as William Francis Park.

William was born in Liverpool on 28 April 1906. After schooling at St Cuthbert’s, Ushaw, he entered the Venerable English College in October 1923 as a seventeen-year-old seminarian for the archdiocese of Liverpool. He appears in an undated photo of the College community from the 1920s seated beside his contemporary, John Heenan, later cardinal archbishop of Westminster. William was ordained priest at the German College on 27 October 1929 by Archbishop Giuseppe Palica (1869–1936).

William Francis Park in 1930: Venerable English College Archives

In July 1930, after having been awarded a Doctorate in Divinity, to add to the Doctorate in Philosophy he had been awarded in 1926, William was appointed “ripetitore in philosophy” and “Bishops’ Agent” at the College. (Then all lectures at the Gregorian University were in Latin. To assist those seminarians who found it difficult to follow the content, the key points were repeated in English in the afternoon in the College.) In a photo of the College community in 1935–36, “Dr Park, Ripetitore” is seated in the front row, beside his friend and colleague, the Vice-Rector, Mgr Richard Smith.

The information provided by the Liber Ruber was helpful, but it provided merely the “skeleton” of William Park’s life. I could not help asking myself, “what sort of man was he whose napkin ring I now use?”

To flesh out the picture, I had recourse to the College journal, The Venerabile, which has been published continuously since 1922. Since its first issue, a recurring item in the journal has been the College Diary. The April 1924 issue records William’s arrival in the College and his name appears thereafter in virtually every issue until April 1938. He seems to have made an immediate impact. In the April 1924 issue, the Literary Society records that:

Mr. W. Park, a first year Philosopher, had the courage and public spirit — not to mention the necessary knowledge — to read a paper on Wireless Telephony, which, if it did require the aid of our only black-board, was anything but a dull orgy of technicalities.

Each year, he took part in the many student productions, including the Philosophers’ Show and the Christmas show. He and Cyril Restieaux (1910–1996), later bishop of Plymouth, provided the stage effects for the production at Palazzola in August 1928 of The Gondoliers. 

He excelled in his studies, passing most of his examinations Summa Cum Laude. In the April 1929 issue, he contributed an article written in Latin describing the events of the Societas Mezzofantiana and an article (in English) in the October 1929 issue on the signing earlier that year of the Lateran Pact.

He finished his studies in 1930 and the diary entry for 12 July of that year records somewhat cryptically:

Mr. W. Park, whose arrival in Liverpool was heralded by excursions and alarms from the Orange section, will return to Rome as ripetitore in Philosophy.

The diary entries for Dr Park’s seven years on the formation staff fill out the picture of his character. He was a keen golfer, walker and leader of gite (trips away) for the seminarians. The diarist for 28 July 1933 records:

On top of it all when I was nearly prostrate with excitement came Doctor Park!  As far as I could gather from his rather retiring conversation he had walked along the range of the Vosges, tramped like a Hannibal elephant over the Alps, flung himself at Monte Rosa, and finally dashed home across the Apennines. He looks well but guilty. Has he lost my ruck-sack?

In December 1937, ill-health forced Dr Park to leave the College abruptly. The April 1938 issue of The Venerabile notes:

After fourteen years in the College Dr Park has returned to England and left a mournful gap in the family circle. Since completing his course in 1930 he has acted as repetitore in Philosophy; and he has done much else besides—how much it is impossible to say, for the gitas that he led or inspired were as multitudinous as they were pleasant, his knowledge of Catholic Italy, the country of the Popes and Saints and religious painters, was a fund on which we all drew time and again, while his gramophone was a means whereby he produced in many of us some appreciation of Beethoven and the other masters. It is not merely in the examination lists of the University that the historian of the future will find the record of what Dr Park has done for the Venerabile, but also in the pages of the College Diary and in the skits and cartoons of Chi lo Sa? Our gratitude and good wishes accompany him to England, where we hope his efforts will be as fruitful as they were here in the Monserrà.

William’s obituary, written by his friend and one-time colleague, Mgr Richard Smith, appears in the November 1950 issue of The Venerabile. It paints an affectionate picture of a man of immense and diverse talent:

One Christmas he wrote at least three sketches for the concerts, unexpectedly satirical sketches; and he made a perfect Alice in Wonderland … He came to Rome with a deep love for English poetry, in which he was well read. It was a love which never deserted him … His flair for philosophy developed immediately …  No one was astonished at the high marks he achieved in his various examinations. Later and closer knowledge of him convinces me that he had a first class analytical brain … His physical endurance was very high … he lived with a new intensity when he was in a high altitude … His knowledge of [the Italian] language was far more detailed than is acquired by many who have lived for years in Rome. He really knew his Dante ... His gramophone, his gitas, above all his talk in the Common Room, were the means of an education in all things Catholic, from which few men indeed failed to profit. He made war on the one-track mind, on all parochialism and insularity.

After his return to Liverpool archdiocese, William served as a curate at St Helen's, Crosby, at Birkdale and at Earlestown. In 1944 tuberculosis of the lung was diagnosed. He was forced to leave his diocese and entered a sanatorium at Kingussie in the Scottish highlands. After a while his health improved sufficiently to let him undertake the care of the parish. He visited Rome and Palazzola for the last time by air in 1949 and was seriously ill on the plane.

Yet it was not tuberculosis which killed him in the end. In the summer of 1950, his condition grew progressively worse and, shortly after a diagnosis of a tumour on the brain, he died on 12 September 1950 in Kingussie. He was only forty-four years old.

I have offered Mass for William and plan to do so again on the 90th anniversary of his priestly ordination, 27 October 2019.  May he rest in peace.

Fr James McAuley
Academic Tutor