Owen Francis Dudley

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The research is summarized on the timeline on and ongoing basis, and visitors to this site are encouraged to share any information that they may have, and/or conduct research of their own!  (NOTE: the links below concerning books are informational–not necessarily buying source recommendations.)

There is not yet any biography of Fr. Dudley:  Fr. Dudley’s novels contain so much autobiographical information that it would be interesting to know where the autobiography stops and the fiction starts.  Moreover, there have not yet been personal letters or even public interviews located in which he discussed the questions arising from this plots (some of which are suggested below).

Moreover, far too little has been written about the Catholic Missionary Society and its remarkable priests and mission.

Books that discuss Fr. Dudley (and also provide insights into the era):

• To Promote, Defend, and Redeem:  The Catholic Literary Revival and the Cultural Transformation of American Catholicism 1920-1960, by Arnold Sparr, SJ, Greenwood Press, 1990.  This book mentions Fr. Dudley repeatedly, because the American literary revival was patterned on the British one, and in that regard Daniel A. Lord, SJ, was a fan of Fr. Dudley’s novels.
•  The Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan, by John A. Hardon, SJ , Grotto Press, 1998 (revised edition), pages 175-177.  Fr. Hardon provides a well-done summary of Fr. Dudley’s life, and notes:  “Dudley is best known as a powerful novelist.  His aim, he said, was `to bring Catholic philosophy and theology before the public in a popular form.’  Six of his novels have been standard in English Catholic literature.”  Still, there may be some confusion:  he then summarizes six books–one of which was not a novel, and there were seven novels total.  It appears that Fr. Hardon was unaware of Fr. Dudley’s last two novels:  Michael:  A Tale of the Masterful Monk and Last Crescendo.
• The Road to Damascus:  The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Fifteen Converts to Catholicism, Fr. John A O’Brien (1893–1980), Doubleday & Company, 1950, pages 134-149.   These converts–including Fr. Dudley–were part of the Catholic literary revival, and their conversion stories provide insights into that era.
• The Catholic Literary Revival:  Three Phases in its Development from 1845 to the Present, by Calvert Alexander, SJ (Bruce Publishing Company, 1935), pages 343 and 353.  Fr. Dudley is mentioned only in passing: presumably because it was published in 1935.  At the time of the author’s research (which would have preceded the publishing date) only 2 or 3 of Fr. Dudley’s 7 novels had been published.  Primarily, this provides insights into that period of time.
• Cardinal John Carmel Heenan: Priest of the Pope, Prince of the Church, by James Hagerty, Gracewing, 2012, pages 57-59.  Then Father Heenan succeeded Fr. Dudley as Superior of the Catholic Missionary Society:  he did not always agree with Fr. Dudley, nor did the bishops overseeing the Society.  As these matters were not the central focus of this book, further research is needed.
• Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief by Joseph Pearce (HarperCollins Publisher in Great Britain, and Ingntius Press in the USA, 1999).  Pages 81-82 discuss the similarities between Ronald A. Knox and Fr. Dudley and the book provide general insight into British Catholic literary history.

Books that don’t discuss Fr. Dudley specifically, but provide insights into the era:

• The Third Spring:  G.K. Chesterton, Graham Greene, Christopher Dawson & David Jones, by Adam Schwartz (2005).  The author is a professor at Christendom College (Front Royal, Virginia, USA), and the book contains some excellent discussion of the differences in writing approaches from those times as compared to more recent writings.
• The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961: Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, Greene, Waugh, by Ian Ker (Notre Dame Press, 2003).
• Some Catholic Novelists:  Their Art and Outlook, by Patrick Braybrooke (London:  Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1931).  This was published when Fr. Dudley had written only two of his novels, and so was not a candidate for inclusion, but the book looks at the issues facing a Catholic novelists at that time.

These books will be discussed on the Catholic Literary Revival page.

Newspaper articles:  In addition to the articles found in archives, some newspaper records are available electronically for the period of Fr. Dudley’s life and before.  They usually require some payment to search.

Fr. Dudley is not always referred to as “Owen Francis Dudley” (which is a distinctive “exact phrase” search):  he is also called Father Owen Dudley, Father Owen F. Dudley, and just Father Dudley.  “Masterful Monk” is also a distinctive search.  The “Catholic Missionary Society” nets a lot, but there are many organizations of that name:  it helps to add an additional word (e.g., “Dudley”).

All but one of these sources have been searched, but there still remains work to be done.

• The Tablet (London).
• The New York Times.
• Newspapers.com which is a data base of many local newspapers primarily in the US but also some other countries with additional articles coming on line every week.
• UK Press Online.
• The Times of London archives goes back to 1785, and it also has a plain text feature allowing you to easily copy and paste the text (although you will need to proof the plain text, because the scanning is not perfect).
• British Library Reference Services newspaper archives (not yet explored).
• The Catholic News Archive of the Catholic Research Resources Alliance is a good, if still somewhat limited (but growing), public resource which is free.

It appears that religious news of Catholics (and Protestants) was covered much more frequently and widely in secular newspapers in the USA as compared to secular newspapers in the UK.

Archives:

• Westminster Diocesan Archives houses the archives of the Catholic Missionary Society:  there is a wealth of information about the Society and Fr. Dudley.  There is a lot of information there (not yet completely reviewed).
• Georgetown University Library, “Gallery of Living Catholic Authors” collection (especially Boxes 16 and 67).  This is a collection that includes a number of articles about Fr. Dudley, some letters to and from Fr. Dudley, and a marked up galley proof of The Tremaynes and the Masterful Monk.  All contents have been reviewed, and some scans made.
• Christendom College Library, Front Royal, VA:  some Catholic Gazette (the Catholic Missionary Society publication) issues containing articles by Fr. Dudley.
• Jesuits in Britain Archives:  Fr. Owen Francis Dudley’s younger brother was Fr. Eustace Dudley, SJ.  They have an interesting outline of Fr. Eustace’s life, but they do not have any correspondence between the brothers.
• British Library Reference Services.  Checked both in person, and via email.  The email response on 11/12/2014 was:  “I searched the BL Archives & Manuscripts Catalogue, which includes the Chesterton Papers, and there are no references at all to Owen Francis Dudley. I also checked if there was an Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article about him but unfortunately there isn’t.”  However, still unexplored is their newspaper archives, and how that may compare to UK Press Online.
• Boston University Library, Belloc Collection.  On the hope that Hillarie Belloc and Fr. Dudley had exchanged letters, I checked with the library:  they reported no such letters.
• Catholic Record Society:  no information–except that the book of James Hagerty (who is with the Society) did have information as noted above.
• The London (Brompton) Oratory:  they had the record of his reception into the Catholic Church on 6 February 1915, but had no additional records.
• Archives of Carmelite Convent at Woodcock Hill outside of Berkhamsted in Hertforshire:  Fr. Dudley’s last assignment was with these Dominican Sisters from 1949 to 1951.  They moved to Wales in 1951 (he did not follow), and finally dispersed in 1989.  The oldest nun, after consulting Preseigne/Berkhamstead Annals, provided helpful information.

Other contact efforts:

• Owen Francis Dudley attended the Monmouth School for boys (Monmouth, Wales), but efforts to get a response from the alumni association were not successful.

Geographical locations: of course, Fr. Dudley’s novels had fictional characters, but the settings of the novels were usually, if not always, familiar to him–so in that regard they were autobiographical. There were many real locations in his novels–as well as other locations that may have been based upon his personal experiences, but had fictional names.

  The Masterful Monk novel: the real London settings are near Hyde Park (map) and Kensington Gardens (map) which form a sort of quadrangle–Hyde Park is the East portion; Kensington Gardens is the West portion. The Serpentine recreational lake runs through both. As is often the case in British novels, this novel is about the wealthy: all neighborhoods described are…posh.

• “Beauty Dethier” (at age 23) lived in a flat on Curzon Street, London: “She lived there alone, save for her maid and the necessary servants” (p.5).  Curzon Street is in the Mayfair section off Park Lane. It runs between the Southeast part of Hyde Park almost to Berkeley Square. “Her people” (at a minimum her parents–and presumably where she was raised) lived in Dorsetshire which is in the Southwest of England on the coast (with its largest city being Bournemouth). Further West is Devon and then Cornwall. North is Wiltshire and Summerset, and East is Hampshire. Southern England has been historically wealthy: and Dorsetshire is no exception.
• “Mrs. Sands-Woodford” lived on Eccleston Square, London (p.4). It’s in the Pimlico section: off Belgrave Road a block or two (South and slightly East) from Victoria Station. (It’s about 1.5 miles [a 30 minute walk] South of Beauty’s flat.)  Winston Churchill used to live on the square. It surrounds Eccleston Square Garden and there’s also currently a hotel there whose guests have access to that private Garden.
• Kensington Palace Gardens is where Beauty went to a luncheon (pp. 6-7) attended by those she viewed as pompous prudes (“Mugwumps”) compared to the fiends of Mrs. Sands-Woodford.  Kensington Palace is on the Western edge of Kensington Gardens.  Kensington Place Gardens describes that section, but is also a nearby street running parallel to the border of Kensington Gardens on the West side. She walked back through Kensington Gardens and by The Serpentine (p. 7).
• “Major Brandreth” went for a walk (p. 24–apparently was in either in May 1923 or 1924 [see discussion in the timeline]). He crossed Bayswater Road which is the northern boundary of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. He then went along the Serpentine to the statue of Peter Pan (South of the Italian Gardens), and walked to the Physical Energy statue (installed in 1907 by the artist George Frederick Watts). Both statues are pictured here (scroll down).  He then walked to the Round Pond–seeing Kensington Palace beyond it–sat down, and read a letter. He was invited to “Hendringham Park.” He also encountered Beauty, and they had a discussion.
• “Hendringham Park” (p. 24 and following) was the estate of the Lord Esterton family (including Eric and Basil) near two towns in Sussex.  One was Horsham which is in West Sussex–Southwest of Crawley (West Sussex’s largest city).  (Sussex is a historical area South of London encompassing East Sussex and West Sussex [which contains Brighton].) The other town is “Windern.”  In the plot, “Windern” was: the location of the closest rail station (2 miles from Hendringham Park, p. 29); where Eric Esterton went to Mass at a small Catholic church (p. 37); from whence a doctor was summoned in an emergency; and the location of a hotel where “Julian Verrers” stayed.  A search turns up no “Windern”, and it was almost certainly a fictional name.  (A town large enough to have a train station, Catholic church [in Anglican Britain], a physician, and a hotel is not likely to have just disappeared. Moreover, the Britain of that era was touchy about bad information being possibly linked to real businesses, places, or people. [The information above about Curzon Street, Eccleston Square, and Kensington Palace Gardens concerned urban areas where the specific address could not be determined.  Only fictional characters lived there: and they were rather ordinary in secular terms. Finally, the references did not reflect badly upon any business who could be identified in any way.]) Since “Hendringham Park” was the name of the family estate of fictional characters, one would expect the name to be fictional as well–and a search turns up nothing. (There is a “Hendringham”, but it’s North of both London and Norwich [and south of the coast and Wells-next-the-Sea, and East of Little Walsingham where Our Lady of Walsingham Shrine is located [North-West of Norwich].)
• I’ve found no monastery at “Issano” Italy (on the lower slopes of the Alps near Switzerland, with a mailing address: “Il Monastero, Issano sott’ Alpi, Italia”).  Fr. Dudley was an Army Catholic Chaplin in Italy and France during the Great War.  Further, according to Fr. Dudley’s family, he traveled some with a wealthy Catholic family (before his conversion) who employed him as a tutor.  I don’t know the extent, if any, to which the monastery and “Issano” are based upon real places but they appear to be fictional.
• “Lady Derringham” had a reception at her “great Queen’s Gate house” (p. 42-52). It’s described as a private home large enough to host a piano concert (by “Lestroi”) with an additional “glass palm-house” where people could talk. Queen’s Gate is a section, and actual gate, and a road–all inter-related. Kensington Road is the South border of Kensington Gardens (and Hyde Park).  Queen’s Gate is a road that runs from Kensington Road to Old Brompton Road.  The gate in question is a gate is into Kensington Gardens. You would go through it by going North on Queen’s Gate, crossing Kensington Road, and then through the gate itself which would put you on South Carriage Drive within Kensington Gardens.
• Queen’s Hall (p. 61 and following) was located on Langham Place: Northeast of Hyde Park–about 1 mile from where Beauty lived.  It was a popular concert hall from its opening in 1893 until it was destroyed by a German incendiary bomb on the night of May 10, 1941.  (A remembrance plaque is located at W1, LANGHAM PLACE, HENRY WOOD HOUSE.)  At the time The Masterful Monk was published in 1929, this building was still standing and in heavy use.  (The St. Bonaventure Publications reprint dated July 2000 is the edition I’ve been using for this summary: the title page notes that the book was originally published by Longmont, Green and Co. Just below that information it has: “1945”–that was not the original publishing date as verified by contemporaneous newspaper articles.)
• The Brompton (London) Oratory  is where Owen Francis Dudley (as an Anglican minister) studied Catholicism and entered the Church. (His father was an Anglican Vicar, and he had followed his father’s footsteps into the Anglican clergy.)  The outside of the Oratory is the scene of two discussions the Beauty had (Chapters V and XVIII). The Oratory is on Brompton Road, London, SW7 2RP–near where Brompton Road (ironically) becomes Cromwell Road and next to the Victoria and Albert Museum a bit South of Hyde Park. It’s about 1.2 miles SW of Beauty’s flat.

Research suggestions:

• There are a host of questions concerning his books, partially because their settings and plots contained so much known autobiography–and it is not clear where autobiography ends and fiction begins.  Did he discuss any of these issues in his personal letters, etc.?
  • His characters converting to Catholicism often experienced strong disapproval of family members–and even a breach in their relationships. Fr. Dudley’s roots were strongly Protestant, and yet two of the Dudley sons became Catholic priests–despite their father being an Anglican vicar.  What was the reaction of the parents? Did it resemble the reactions of the parents of any of his novels?  (Further research involving currently living family members has suggested that, although there was inevitable tension at times, there was no breach.)
  • While Superior of the Catholic Missionary Society (England and Wales), he traveled to New Zealand and Australia which was recounted in fictional form in Michael–in which an English woman visited her New Zealand relatives (and the differences between the old world and the new were appreciated).  Fr. Dudley had Protestant relatives in Australia:  did they visit on his trip?
  • In Pageant of Life, the young Anselm Thornton (later the Masterful Monk) has some initial discussions with the mother of Cyril Rodney (Chapter II).  When he finds out that she dislikes Catholics, he asks why?  She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings, but he replied:  “`You won’t hurt my feelings.’  He looked at her whimsically.  `I’m used to it.'”  But later he brings the issue up again, and there is “a note of hurt in his voice which told her that she had hurt him as supper, though he had not shown it at the time.”  And into the conversation:  “`Mrs Rodney.’  He spoke her name appealingly.  The harsh tone had gone.  `It hurts us Catholics–this sort of thing.  Did you know that?'”  Was Fr. Dudley’s point that young people sometimes think something won’t hurt them, but then find out that they don’t completely know their own minds yet?  Did he ever comment on the apparent contradiction?
  • The Masterful Monk (1929) was made into a play by William Hocker and George H.H. Lamb in 1937 (first presented on 2/11/38 in Scranton, PA, USA).  Was there any correspondence between Fr. Dudley and the playwrights?  Did the changes made by the play spark any discussion about the original book?  These questions arise due to this:  although the play was largely true to the original book (even using much of the same wording), changes had to be made to reduce the scope of the book for the stage–in the process the playwrights fixed some arguable flaws in the plot of the novel.  During that era, keeping information from a character was a common plot theme:  for that character’s “own good” (as in this case); because of a confidentiality obligation (real or imagined); or because a lie had been told but not yet admitted.
    • In The Masterful Monk, Fr. Anselm Thornton did not inform Lord Esterton that there was very specific and credible information suggesting the very real possibility of a violent crime at his home:  so specific that the Monk had requested Scotland Yard protection (without mentioning that fact to Lord Esterton) which was to arrive the next day.  As a result, it was Lord Esterton himself who opened the drawing room curtain–being totally unaware of the danger outside–which enabled the attack.  (Not to mention that doors were not locked, nor were the hunting shotguns [to be found at any manor house] retrieved for self-defense.) The novel acknowledged that the Monk and the Major erred–with the best of intentions–but the confessed mistakes were merely tactical in nature (failure to keep the malefactor from reaching the house itself).  The play fixed that by having the lord travel for business–and so he was not there–and by having the attack come with little notice.  Did Fr. Dudley notice and comment?
    • Beauty Dethier imposed tests:  first upon herself, and then upon Basil (Chapter XIX and following).  Although these tests were understandable, Beauty imposed them in an inflexible and absolute matter–which arguably did not make sense in view of the traumatic loss to Basil of his beloved brother.  She was not a friend to Basil, although she loved him.  Was that a manifestation of the British pride and honor of the day?  A portrayal of a flaw in Beauty’s character?  A plot device to get to the last scene?  Or just an example of this characteristic plot device (problematic secrecy) of that era?
    • The name of the country estate in the novel was “Hendringham” or “Hendringham Park” near the towns of “Windern” and “Horsham” in Sussex.  Google maps does show a Horsham in (West) Sussex, however it does not show any “Windern” close by (nor in England at all).  (Sussex is on the Southern coast South of London.)  Is this an accurate summation of the actual geography of the names in the novel?
    • His novels featured many conversions, but never the conversion of a devout Protestant–indeed, Mrs. Rodney (Pageant of Life) is the only devout Protestant featured in his novels.  This is interesting in that he was the head of the Catholic Missionary Society whose mission it was to attempt to convert–largely Protestant–England and Wales back to Catholicism.  Obviously he thought the differences were important, because he was an Anglican minister that converted to Catholicism–as did one of his brothers.  Additionally, his books never addressed the common debate topics between Protestants and Catholics:  although he did often feature ignorant prejudice of Protestant origin against Catholics.  (He just didn’t seem to view Protestantism as viable due to endless disagreements over doctrine along with the Anglican compromises with modernism in his day.)  Many possible reasons spring to mind (e.g., priorities, family loyalty), but did he ever offer a direct explanation?
• Fr. Dudley was very busy, and worked with people constantly:  sometimes people like that don’t have time for close friends.  Did he have close friends that he wrote to? Or were his close friends limited to his fellow priests in the Catholic Missionary Society–where there was no need for writing letters, because they lived together in community?

• There are many questions concerning the Catholic Missionary Society (CMS) deserving of further research.
  • The mission of the CMS was to convert England and Wales from (at least nominal) Anglicanism to Catholicism:  clearly there was increasing discomfort with this mission as time went on.  When did the discomfort start (or was it there, to some degree, from the beginning), and what was its progression?  (According to Fr. [later Cardinal] Heenan, the original intention of the bishops of England and Wales was to let the CMS die, rather than to appoint a new Superior after Fr. Dudley, but the Apostolic Delegate [Archbishop Godfrey] successfully pleaded for a reprieve–indicating that abolishment would be poorly received by the Vatican which would assume that “evangelical zeal was cooling and that the Catholics of England had abandoned hope of winning the country back to the Old Faith.”)
  • Until Fr. John Carmel Heenan (later Cardinal) took over in 1947, CMS had a somewhat independent charter from the Bishops of England and Wales–for example, they chose their own Superiors.  Their priests were from England and Wales, and they had missions there, but they were not part of the diocesan administrative offices.  Did that cause bureaucratic-type strains and conflicts?
  • Regarding 1938: “Such was the parlous state of the CMS in 1938, however, that the bishops passed a vote of no confidence in it `as it is at present’ and appointed a committee to plan for its future” (Hagerty, p. 57). (James Hagerty’s source for this statement was: “Griffin to Downey, 4 Oct. 1946. ALA, Downey Collection, SI/II/B/74. Acta of the Bishops’ Conference, 25 Oct. 1938; 18-19 April 1939; 23-24 Oct. 1946; 15-16 April, 1947.”)  Fr. Dudley had been Superior at that point for about 5 years.  What were the issues?
  • Oddly, at the beginning of this same year (1938), Fr. Dudley had left for a (successful) world tour with the permission of his bishop, and with the bishop’s hand-written letter of introduction to the American episcopacy.  So, did the problems develop because the Superior, Fr. Dudley, was not there?  Or did they send Fr. Dudley on tour (or at least happily approve the suggestion) to get him out of the way?  Or was his bishop supportive, while  some of the other bishops view Fr. Dudley differently?  Or…
  • As Fr. Heenan was taking over as Superior for the Catholic Missionary Society, he met with Fr. Dudley.  Shortly thereafter, he wrote a 5 page letter that was rather critical.  Why?  Was Dudley was a better author/speaker than administrator?  Was Fr. Heenan was letting his ego get in the way (he was reportedly a difficult person to work for at times)?  Perhaps the bishops had antagonism to the CMS and/or Fr. Dudley, and their attitude carried through to Fr. Heenan?  Was there some combination of things?
  • In 1965 (over a decade after Fr. Dudley’s death, Fr. Michael Gallon, editor of the Catholic Gazette (the publication of Catholic Missionary Society), issued a report that was carried as “Church’s Failure” in newspapers.  According to the articles, Fr. Gallon viewed the greatest failure of the Catholic Church in Britain as its inability to integrate itself into English culture–which presumably required Catholics to jettison Catholic culture.  He is quoted:  “The Catholic population in England continues to stick out like a sore thumb from ordinary Englishmen…The result is the miserably small percentage of Catholics in Parliament or public affairs.”  Is there a full report in the CMS archives? (In Fr. Dudley’s books conversions started when people realized that Catholics really were different–noticeably different.)

• A biography of Fr. Dudley.
• An account of the rise and fall of the extraordinary Catholic Missionary Society.
• Fr. Dudley’s last two novels are very good, but they have been long out of print (with Micheal recently coming back into print only recently).
• His novels could benefit from annotation:
  • He was very British, and his novels were generally set in real places and discussed actual events.  Annotation would help readers (especially those not British) understand better references and terms that are no longer familiar.
  • As he was part of the Catholic literary revival opposing very specific ideas and their proponents, annotation could make connections among concepts and people.
• Articles are needed.  For example, it may be that pre-existing books adequately cover the Catholic literary revivals, but if so, they are largely unknown and need to be summarized and thus publicized.  Fr. Dudley needs to be publicized more–and he is far from being the only wrongly forgotten Catholic author!