CHILD OF LAST WAR

Brentwood Dtocese now tn tts 25th Year
A few days ago, on March 22, occurred the twenty-fourth anniversary of the formation of the youngest of the three metropolitan dioceses, that of Brentwood. It was a child of the last war, and but for Lancaster, would be England's youngest diocese. Its present Bishop, Mgr. Arthur Doubleday, successor of the first occupant, Bishop Ward, was, like his predecessor, associated with work in a diocesan seminary prior to taking up the onerous task of guiding the destinies of a new and growing diocese. Mgr. Ward came from St. Edmund's, Ware, as it will be recalled, while Mgr. Doubleday had been Rector of the Southwark Diocesan Seminary at Wonersh.
the present Bishop, who was born at Pietermaritzburg in 1865, had a touch of heraldic humour when he caused, on his, consecration 21 years ago, to insert in his coat of arms the "rebus" of the "double day," in the form of a rising sun.
He has now 160
priests at work in his diocese of one million acres. which comprises the whole county ol Essex, as compared
with 94 when he suc
ceeded Bishop Ward. and at one time one-hail of the clergy of the county were made up of the Franciscans at Forest Gate. Stratford and Woodford. To-day there are nearly a dozen Orders and Congregations represented, as well as twenty Congregations of women. The Sisters of Mercy alone account for nine centres.
One of the Bishop's many problems has been that of Dagenham and Becontree, where the L.C.C. installed many thousands of Londoners. A generation ago the firstnamed was a small hamlet and the Catholics there had to walk to Barking church. But the area has now five missions including the beautiful Romanesque church of St. Peter at Goreshrook, belonging to the La Salette missionaries.
A DIOCESAN PERSONALITY
Perhaps one of the most outstanding personalities of the diocese is Mgr. Provost William O'Grady, V.G., whose church at Walthamstow, the famous Catholic centre of an eastern outskirt of London, is in the news these days by reason of the damage suffered by church property in the recent raids. An Irishman by birth, he is the diocese's first Vicar-General, and had intended in his youth to become a lawyer, but one day an old friar in Dublin asked him why he did not try his vocation. Mgr. O'Grady did, became a priest. and took charge of the parish of Sc. George at Walthamstow in 1905.
Enjoying the confidence of the late Cardinal Bourne. the latter would have liked to re-transfer him back to his old diocese of Westminster on the creation of the Brentwood territory which involved Walthamstow coming under the jurisdiction of a new Ordinary. But Mgr. O'Grady remained there and became the diocese's Provost, its Vicar-General as well, and eventually a Domestic Prelate to the Pope.
Since he began at Walthamstow 36 years ago he has divided up the original parish into a number of flourishing centres, erecting the missions of St. Patrick, at Blackhorse Road, Waltharnstow (in 1908), Our Lady of Lourdes, Wanstead (1919), and Our Lady of Glace, Chingford (1919). He rebuilt and enlarged the Walthamstow parish schools and built Walthamstow's new church of Christ the King at Chingford Road, opened nine years ago. For the past 35 years Mgr. O'Grady has been a member of the Catholic Education Council and of the Walthamstow Education Committee.
His church and presbytery at Walthamstow were recently badly damaged, when Wiseman House, the parochial ball, was practically demolished. Previously the old school had been wrecked and £3.000 worth of damage caused to the senior schools. In the autumn, too, St. Elizabeth's Convent of the Poor Handmaids received a direct hit, one nun being killed.
In the latest visitation " all the slates were blown off the church, and the doors and windows blown out; while not a window, dour, or piece of ceiling plaster rernained in the presbytery. Mgr. O'Grady is having the windows of his church covered in with wood and he and his great parish (there are four curates) are carrying on undaunted on Sundays, when the four Masses tare celebrated as usual.