With sadness, we announce the death on Wednesday 22nd March, of Fr Henry Patrick Thomas Young. He died peacefully at St Anne’s Home, Stoke Newington where he had been living for the past twelve months. Fr Henry was receiving end of life care.
Fr Henry was born in London on 20th April 1932 and ordained to the priesthood on 16th June 1957 at Westminster Cathedral. Condolences are extended to Fr Henry's family, friends and colleagues, to all who knew him from his years of teaching at the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Kensington from 1961 to 1992 and to the Sisters, staff and residents at St Anne’s Home.
Fr Henry’s Funeral Mass will be on Tuesday 16th May at 11.30am at Our Lady of Victories, Kensington. Bishop Paul McAleenan will preside and the homily will be given by Mgr Séamus O’Boyle. Burial at St Mary’s Cemetery, Harrow Road NW10 will follow the Funeral Mass.
We pray for the repose of Fr Henry's soul:
Almighty and eternal God,
hear our prayers for your son Fr Henry Young
whom you have called from this world to yourself.
Grant him light, happiness and peace.
Let him pass in safety through the gates of death, and live for ever with all your saints in the light you promised to Abraham and to all his descendants in faith.
Guard him from all harm
and on that great day of resurrection and reward raise him up with all your saints.
Pardon his sins and give him eternal life in your kingdom.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Obituary
‘Amare et Servire’, to love and to serve, is the motto of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Kensington, the school in which Fr Henry Young taught for 31 years as a priest of the Diocese of Westminster, from 1961 to 1992. His way of serving God, the Church and the community was through his love of teaching. He was a much-loved member of staff who helped to develop the children of the school intellectually, culturally, socially and spiritually. The school, founded in 1914 as a private school for boys with Canon Driscoll as the first Headmaster, expanded over the next two decades but had to evacuate to Beaumont College near Windsor during the Second World War. The Vaughan became a state-funded grammar school under the Education Act of 1944.
In 1961 Fr Henry joined the staff, teaching chemistry having studied for a degree at Cambridge where he was sent soon after his ordination to the priesthood. Expansion of the Vaughan continued and a new building was opened in 1964. In 1977 the school broadened its intake to include students of all abilities. Girls were admitted to the sixth form. Fr Henry was at ease with these developments, led by Fr Richard Kenefeck, Headmaster from 1952 to 1976. Neither Fr Henry nor the next Headmaster, the first to be a lay man, Mr Anthony Pellegrini, was to know that it would be Father Anthony Pellegrini who would officiate at his burial in St Mary’s Cemetery, Harrow Road 46 years after Mr Pellegrini assumed the Headship of the Vaughan. Anthony Pellegrini was Headmaster from 1976 to 1997. When retired he offered himself for priesthood in the Diocese of Westminster and, following formation at the Beda Seminary in Rome, was ordained in 2004.
Henry Young was born in London on 20th April 1932, the only child of Dr George Young, a GP, and his wife Doreen. Henry was educated at Ratcliffe College in Leicestershire from 1943 to 1951. He was bright and excelled in mathematics. He was a keen sportsman, representing the school in athletics, football and cricket. His sense of vocation to the priesthood led to his acceptance for formation at Allen Hall, St Edmund’s College in Ware, Hertfordshire where he was a seminarian from 1951 to 1957. As a seminarian he was quiet and studious, coming to life on the sports field, especially when playing cricket. He was a member of the choir that recorded Joseph Gelineau Psalms in the Grail translation.
He was ordained to the priesthood on 16th June 1957 in Westminster Cathedral by Cardinal William Godfrey, Archbishop of Westminster. Fr Henry then spent a year at Cambridge Technical College and, in 1958, he commenced studies in Natural Sciences at Christ’s College, Cambridge. While there he played cricket and rugby for the university.
In 1961 Fr Henry joined the staff at the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School to teach science and chemistry. An exemplary teacher, he earned the respect of colleagues, students and their parents and carers, and he endorsed the Catholic ethos and objectives of the school. He remained on the staff until his retirement in 1992. During the initial years he lived with other priests in a house on Holland Park Gardens and, later, he moved to live on Lower Addison Gardens, both properties being close to the school.
He was committed to the education and development of young people. He sang in the school choir, he coached and managed the football team in winter and the cricket team in summer. He drove the school minibus, taking students to fixtures in the UK and beyond. Fr Henry started a school tradition of outdoor education and, during the summers in the 1960s and 70s, led climbing and camping trips in Snowdonia or the Lake District. He was invigorated by morning swims in freezing lakes!
In addition to academic, social and sporting activities Fr Henry helped to develop the spiritual lives of students. He organised weekend camps at Worth Abbey in West Sussex and pilgrimages to Lourdes in France and Oberammergau in Germany. In the 1980s he took students to the USA covering many miles in hired station wagons travelling across the spectacular landscape. He was given an affectionate nickname at the Vaughan, ‘Plod’, something he was aware of and amused by.
When the opportunity arose for the school to appoint a second Deputy Headmaster, Fr Henry was appointed, but not for long. He voluntarily stood down having decided that the classroom and the laboratory were his métier, not administration. His priestly instincts moved him to reach out to less able students, giving them additional time and attention, helping to transform their lives.
Over the years at the Vaughan Fr Henry won the respect of colleagues and students alike and many enduring friendships were formed. Kind and gentle, he was good natured, relaxed and unfussy with a modern outlook and broad interests. He was never critical of others but displayed generosity of spirit. He maintained links with his family and enjoyed family holidays and opportunities to minister the sacraments of the Church.
By the age of 80 he began to restrict travel to the UK and in his mid-80s his mobility became impaired but he was still able to drive his car. In March 2022, as his need of care increased, he moved shortly before his 90th birthday from his home since his retirement from teaching in August 1992 on Heathfield Terrace in Chiswick, to live at St Anne’s Home in Stoke Newington. He quickly endeared himself to the Sisters, staff and residents and was grateful for the support and the end of life care he received. He was grateful, too, for the support given by the close family and friends of ‘Team Henry’.
May his gentle soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
