IN MEMORIAM
REVEREND DOM JULIAN STEAD ’43
1918 to become an ordained priest in the Church of England, serving as an assistant chaplain in Florence, Italy, before returning to chaplaincy work in Oxford. He earned his Master of Arts in Theology at Queen’s College in 1925 and inhabited a heady intellectual world, notably receiving T.S. Eliot into the Anglican communion and baptizing him in 1927. Eliot later included two of the elder Stead’s poems in the 1936 edition he edited of The Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935. In addition to T.S. Eliot, Stead counted among his associates W.B. Yeats, C.S. Lewis, and later W.H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and many others. His vocation, however, took a definitive turn in 1933, when he converted to Catholicism, following his wife, Anne Frances Goldsborough Stead, who had become a Catholic in 1929. William soon found himself alienated from Anglican society and resigned his position at Worcester College. This rich and, one might say, tumultuous intellectual and spiritual heritage no doubt impacted the young Peter Stead profoundly. In There Shines Forth Christ, he recollects, “My early childhood was spent around Worcester College, where my father was a fellow; but at Blackfriars on St. Giles, in August of 1933, he and I were received into the Roman Catholic Church by the Dominican Father Bede Jarrett.”
Reverend Dom Julian Stead O.S.B.’43, monk and priest of Portsmouth Abbey and alumnus of Portsmouth Priory School, died early on the morning of Dec 23, 2020 at St. Clare-Newport where he had been in residence for the past several years. “Father Julian knew for weeks that this day was approaching,” said Prior Michael Brunner at Father Julian’s funeral Mass on December 30, 2020. “He deeply felt the call to move on. He really wanted to return to England and to be at Downside, but God was calling him to his true home. Jesus has finally extended this invitation to an exemplary monk, priest and teacher: ‘Come, you blessed by My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’.” Father Julian was born Peter Force Stead on 20 November 1926 in Oxford, England, of American parents who made their home in Oxford. His father, William Force Stead, had graduated from the University of Virginia in 1908, working for the United States State Department in Washington, D.C. He would serve as Vice Consul at the U.S. Consulates in Nottingham and later in Liverpool, England. William Stead left this career in
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Peter Stead attended Worth, the preparatory school for Downside Abbey, beginning in the summer term of 1935. He remembered his years at Worth as his happiest, writing in an autobiographical note to his poetry collection, “It was an earthly paradise, for me.” He formed a profound friendship with Dom Julian Stonor, the monk and mystic who was on the faculty there and later served heroically in World War II as chaplain to the Irish Guards, and from whom he would take his name in religion. In an interview with Miriam Matheson Desrosiers, Father Julian speaks of his father’s reaction to an initial encounter with Father Stonor: “He was proof of the existence of God himself.” Father Julian Stonor became the monastic namesake of Peter Stead, who never ceased to speak fondly, reverently, of the man as a saint. His schooling at Worth had been shaped by their encounter: “This young teacher, Julian Stonor, was most impressive. I had him as a teacher of French; we read great stories about adventure in glider planes and a great deal of poetry. He took us out for long walks and tree climbing. We called him Brother Julian and we called ourselves ‘Julian’s Gang.’” Fr. Stonor remained in touch with Father Julian, who spoke often of his sanctity. The authenticity and vitality of his faith left its imprint on the young Peter Stead, who continued to seek out such qualities in Christian community life. This may be seen in Father Julian’s involvement in the Focolare movement, whose
P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL
