THOMAS ARTHUR YOUNG

Thomas Arthur Young

Thomas Arthur Young, who lived at Kingerby Hall near Market Rasen was a descendant of a member of the Young family that came to be employed as stewards of the West Rasen estate of the recusant Catholic Constable family. A Constable had been involved in the 16th Century Lincolnshire Rising. The Youngs acquired over the years possession of a considerable amount of land and had come to live in their estate’s mansion at Kingerby.

In the mid 1800s T. A. Young decided to spend his large fortune building churches for the increasing Catholic population. In 1868 together with contributions from local Catholics he set about enlarging Holy Rood Church at Market Rasen. It was enlarged with the addition of a north aisle and a south aisle, complete with a massive tower. We are reminded of the 1791 prohibition concerning Catholic buildings “having no bell and no steeple”! Holy Rood was close to T.A.Young’s residence at Kingerby, which he now closed up in order to save money for his enterprises. He went to live in a small thatched cottage at Middle Rasen.
Kingerby Hall built 1801 to replace the earlier Castle /mansion. This was the home of the Young family at the time T. A. Young began his programme of church building.

Gainsborough some 20 miles of Kingerby had a Ctholic community in the town since 1866. Two years after Catholics came to live there T.A.Young commissioned an architect, Mr Hadfield of Sheffield, to build a Gothic style chapel to accommodate 150 people. The chapel was completed at a cost to T. A. Young of £1,250.

The Isle of Axholme in N. Lincs also had a sizeable Catholic population by the middle of the 19th Ccentury. The priest came from Gainsborough to celebrate Mass for the Catholics in Crowle. In 1871 T. A. Young went with Mr. Philips, a publisher, to Tongerloo in Belgium to request the abbot of the abbey there to help in establishing a Catholic centre in Crowle. The abbot visited Crowle and agreed to establish the presence of his order, the Norbetines in Crowle. T. A. Young then commissioned A.D. Hadfield and George Sinclair to build a house and church in Crowle. On July 7th 1871 the foundation stone was laid and a church built in the early English Style. On September 2nd 1872 a Norbetine priest, the Reverend Francis Gaudens, became Crowle’s first resident priest.

T. A. Young also had his attention on the Church’s needs in Lincoln. He announced his intention of building a church to replace the chapel in Silver Street and to this end bought two old house at the Broadgate. He had the site cleared and plans drawn up by the architect Mr Hadfield. The plans were taken to the bishop for approval, but the bishop withheld his approval and Mr Young withdrew his offer. Lincoln Catholics were left with their old chapel and presbytery until the present St Hugh’s was opened in 1893.
After the squashing of his plans for Lincoln, T .A. Young turned to Grimsby. Mass had been celebrated for the Catholics in the town by a visiting priest since 1857. A writer commented at the time, “There was neither chapel, mission house or school in the place”.
 

In 1871 the Hon. Mrs Fraser (nee Heneage) presented the Catholics of Grimsby with a site in the town for a church. It was here that T. A. Young was able to build the fine gothic church dedicated to Our Lady. The church altar is in the early decorated style. Mrs Fraser also gave a site adjacent to the church for a school and the costs of this work were borne by herself and Sir John Sutton. In 1876 T.A.Young also built a church for the Norbetines in Spalding in south Lincolnshire.

When Thomas Arthur Young died the intention was to bury him the church he had built, but the Home Office would not allow it. His grave is in the old Catholic part of Market Rasen cemetery. Bishop Bagshaw of Nottingham, who assisted at his funeral, spoke highly of him in the address he gave. He said, “He has lived these long 87 years with an ample income which would have enabled him to take his place in the world and live in comfort, nay even in splendour and luxury, but he made himself poor for Christ’s sake and lived as a poor man with the plainest of comforts, so that nothing should interfere with his self-devotion to God.”

Thomas Arthur Young’s benefactions to the Catholics of N. Lincs. did not end with his death. At the beginning of the 20th Century the Belgian priest who was in charge of the Scunthorpe mission heard of the fund for church building that T. A. Young had established in his will. In 1910 he applied for and received a grant to help him in the building of a permanent church. All Souls Scunthorpe was completed the following year by Father Fred Askew and consecrated by the Rt. Rev. Dr Brindle D.S.O., Bishop of Nottingham.

Shortly before his death, T. A. Young left a message for his fellow Catholics inscribed on an obituary board, which is preserved in Osgodby Chapel. On one side are the names of his family who lived in Kingerby, Claxby, West Rasen and Normanby le Wolds. The list of names begins in the year 1704. There are over fifty names on the list, the people are described in many cases as Popish recusants and simply as Papists. 

On the reverse side of the tablet is this message:

This Family
Mortuary Tablet
Was compiled
by
Thomas Arthur Young
Knight of St Gregory the Great
In living memory of his heroic ancestors
Recorded in this memorial-likewise
To perpetuate their firm adherence to
Holy Church in times of persecution
Fines – penalties-confiscations- imprisonment
and execution.
We their descendents living in more favoured
Times –should not lead relaxed rules of life
But Emulate the Ancestral Virtues- steadfast
In Faith and the performance of Good Works
Bearing ever in recollection this
Little Temple
Was erected- Altar raised to Illustrate
Their Gratitude and Thanksgiving
Give them Eternal Rest, O Lord
Amen- Amen