Biographies of Fr Alfred Hope Patten
1970 (reprinted 2008), 1983, 2004, 2006
and photographs of his funeral
Fr Colin Stephenson, Fr Patten's successor as Master of the Guardians
and Administrator, retired as Administrator in 1968 and appealed for
information and reminiscences to help him write the book that was finally
published in 1970, entitled Walsingham Way. As the dust-jacket
described, it was "the first full-length book about the Shrine, and about
Hope Patten. It is a story told with candour and humour by the one man
ideally qualified to tell it".
Although eagerly awaited and a gripping read, it was
not universally applauded, and was criticised by
some as being in places flippant and inaccurate.
There is some truth in these criticisms, but one must
remember that Fr Colin never claimed to write an authoritative
historical record. In his piece written for the Walsingham Review he
said that he intended to make it a simple account of what was [then]
known of the foundation and history of the Shrine, and with it came
what he described as "more or less a biography of Alfred Hope Patten".
He had known Walsingham and Fr Patten since 1935 and was best
placed at the time to record what was known so far. It was written in
his own entertaining style, as he talked, with quantities of humorous
anecdotes and asides thrown in; and his chief research material for the biography was in
truth his own lively reminiscences and those of so many people still living who had known
Fr Patten even longer than he had.
Fr Gordon Reid (former Rector of St Clement's, Philadelphia), Fr
Colin's executor, allowed a second edition to be published in 2008, and
himself wrote a new Preface to it which sought to place the book in its
own historical perspective, after nearly forty years of momentous
changes in Walsingham, the Church of England and beyond. In 1972 Fr
Colin had published his own autobiography, Merrily on High: this was
also reprinted in 2008 with another new bridging Preface by Fr Gordon.
Both Fr Colin and Fr Gordon referred to Fr Patten by his baptismal
name of ‘Hope’, and knew well that his was not a hyphenated surname:
the use of ‘Hope-Patten’ throughout Fr Gordon’s new Preface can be
taken as a printing error.
A review of both revised editions appears in the Assumptiontide 2009 edition of the
Walsingham Review, written by Ruth Ward, a Guardian since 2003.
A short study, assessing Fr Patten's priestly life and achievements, was published
in 1983 in the 'Oxford Prophets' series of booklets marking the 150th anniversary year
of the Oxford Movement. The series, published by the Church Union and edited by Fr
Jeremy Haselock, charted the lives of the founders of the Movement, and of many later
leaders and outstanding personalities, truly prophets in their day. Fr Patten's biography,
number five in the series, was written by Fr John Barnes, at the time still Vicar of
Walsingham, as he was from 1977 to 1989. The same text was reissued at least twice some
years later, adding the collect for Fr Patten from the Norwich Diocesan Calendar, but
omitting the photograph of him at the altar that had appeared in the Oxford Prophets
original.
Fr Patten's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) was
written by Fr Peter Cobb.
This definitive biography of Fr Patten appeared in 2006. It is a
full-length scholarly study by Michael Yelton. In his Anglican Papalism
(2005) he had written about Fr Patten and his restoration of the
Walsingham Shrine and the need for a full biography. The next year he
wrote and published one, entitled Alfred Hope Patten and the Shrine of
Our Lady of Walsingham, An illustrated biography. He had unrestricted
access to the Shrine archives and to much other previously unseen and
unpublished material, and did extensive research elsewhere. (In 2007 he
published Alfred Hope Patten: his life and times in pictures, which
contained the overflow of photographs from the biography.) At this
distance in time, and with comprehensive resources, Yelton was able to
assess all aspects of Fr Patten's life, including in the opening chapters
exploring for the first time his family origins, his early life and some of
the myths that he liked to create around himself*.
After Fr Patten died in 1958 tributes appeared in journals and newspapers in
this country and in many parts of the world: it was natural that before long
someone would attempt a formal biography. We know from our archives that in
1961 Fr Smith of St Salvador, Edinburgh, advertised for material about Fr Patten with a
view to writing one, but nothing came of this. If he started it, the manuscript has not
survived, and nothing was published.
Link to photographs of Fr Patten’s funeral procession on 13 August 1958
and to photographs on 11 August 2008 of the commemoration of the fiftieth
anniversary of his death
*Chapters 1 & 2 of Michael Yelton’s biography accurately reveal more than has ever been
known about Fr Patten’s life before he came to Walsingham. Fr Patten rarely spoke about his
family or his early education, but his clerical path is fairly well documented. Crockford’s
recorded that he entered Lichfield Theological College in 1911, was made deacon 1913,
ordained priest 1914, Curate of Holy Cross, St Pancras 1913-15, St Alban’s Teddington 1915-
18, St Mary’s Buxted 1919-20. He was inducted into the benefice of Great & Little
Walsingham with Houghton St Giles on 19 January 1921. His time as Curate of S Michael &
All Angels Ladbroke Grove North Kensington 1919 and Curate of St Andrew’s Carshalton
Beeches 1920 is not always recorded in Crockford’s, and, like the short time possibly spent as
a locum at St Michael’s Edinburgh just before that, may have been only informal
appointments.