Habemus Ducem: Archbishop Hinsley’s Appointment to Westminster, 1935

Abstract

Arthur Hinsley was born in 1865 at Carlton, near Selby, in Yorkshire. Educated and trained for the priesthood at St. Cuthbert’s College, Ushaw, and the Venerable English College, Rome, he was ordained for the Diocese of Leeds in 1893 and immediately returned to Ushaw as a professor. In 1898 he became a curate at St. Anne’s Church, Keighley and from 1900 to 1904 was the founding headmaster of St. Bede’s Grammar School, Bradford. Following a disagreement with Bishop William Gordon of Leeds he was incardinated into the Diocese of Southwark in late 1904 and served as rector at Sutton Park near Guildford and at Sydenham. In 1917 Hinsley was appointed Rector of the Venerabile and in 1928 was sent to Africa as Apostolic Visitor charged with assessing and reporting on the state of Catholic missionary education in the British colonies. While in Africa he remained Rector of the English College but resigned from this post in 1930 when he was appointed as the first Apostolic Delegate to the British colonies in Africa. He remained in Africa until an attack of paratyphoid forced him to retire and return to Rome in 1934. On his retirement he was given a sinecure as a Canon of St. Peter’s Basilica. Hinsley had been created a Domestic Prelate to Pope Benedict XV in 1917 when he was appointed to the Venerabile. In 1926 he was consecrated titular Bishop of Sebastopolis and when he returned to Africa in 1930 he became titular Archbishop of Sardis.