OBITUARY
DOM Adrian Morey, Monk of Downside Abbey and Cathedral Prior of Ely, died on February 3, a few weeks short of his 85th birthday, writes Dom Aidan Bellenger of Downside Abbey.
He was a Londoner and received his early education at Latymer Upper School. He entered the Downside Community in 1923 and had a distinguished academic career. He was a Scholar at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he received a double-first in History, and received a PhD at Munich. He was ordained priest in 1932 and from then until his death he combined a life as a monk-schoolmaster with that of an academic historian specialising in the Medieval Church.
He was a Housemaster at Downside from 1934-38, Headmaster of St Benedict's Ealing from 1938-39, in charge of the Downside dependency at Worth from 1939-41, a Housemaster again at Downside from 1942-46, and Bursar at Downside, 1946-50.
He was Headmaster of the Oratory School from 1952-67 and after two years at Little Malvern (as Parish Priest) he went to Benet House, the Downside House of Studies at Cambridge, where he was Master until his death.
As a historian he was elected a F R Hist S in 1942 and received a Litt D from Cambridge. His first book Bartholomew of Exeter (1937) explored the life and thoughts of a twelfth-century canonist and bishop. Later he published a study The Catholic Subjects of Elizabeth I (1978) and a memoir of David Knowles (1979), his fellow Downside monk and the outstanding monastic historian of his generation. His magnum opus was on the life, letters, and charters of the Cluniac Gilbert Folio% foe of the 12th century martyr Becket, published in two volumes in collaboration with Professor Christopher Brooke and published between 1965 and 1967.
Dom Adrian, who was given the titular priorship of Ely in 1987, • remained, despite increasing deafness, mentally agile until his death. He was a representative of the great tradition of St Gregory's for learning and service to Catholic Education.