Henry Collins

COLLINS, Henry. b. Barningham, North Yorkshire (now County Durham), 1828 (baptized 29 June); d. Coalville, Leicestershire, 29 January 1919. The son of the rector of Barningham, he was briefly an Anglican priest (1853-57) before converting to Roman Catholicism. He studied at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, founded in 1852 specifically for clergymen from the Church of England to prepare them for the Catholic priesthood. Ordained in 1859, he became a Cistercian monk at Mount St Bernard’s Abbey, Coalville, Leicestershire, in 1860, taking the name of Father Austin (Augustine). From 1882 to 1913 he was chaplain to a community of Cistercian nuns at Staplehill, Wimborne, Dorset. He returned to...