| Admin_History | Francis Woodlock was born on 23 September 1871 in Monkstown, County Dublin. He was the fifth child of a family of nine.
Woodlock began his education at Beaumont in 1880, and joined the noviciate at Manresa on 7 September 1889. He was ordained priest at St Beuno’s on 31 July 1902, and was at Stonyhurst in 1903. From 1905 to 1910 he worked in Leeds, first for a year at the Church and then at the College.
From 1910 to 1912 Woodlock returned to Stonyhurst, where he became known for his lecturing and preaching, and where he coached cricket and organised boxing.
For a short time before the First World War Woodlock returned to his old school, Beaumont, as Minister, but was soon appointed as a military chaplain. He served at various camps in England before sailing for France in April 1915, where he was initially with the Field Ambulance at the front. He later served in a hospital at Étretat before becoming assistant principal chaplain at the Base Camp at Boulogne. He was awarded the Military Cross in March 1918, and received a Portuguese decoration in 1919.
After having been demobilised in April 1919, Woodlock spent a few months in retreat-work at Whinney House, Gateshead, before returning once again to Stonyhurst in October, this time as Spiritual Father.
In July 1921 Woodlock was appointed to Farm Street, where he remained until he died.
Woodlock gave many retreats to diocesan clergy, his last being given to Leeds clergy at the Mount in August 1939. In 1936 he was invited to Rome to give retreats at the English and Scots Colleges, and in 1939 he returned to Rome to give other retreats.
In 1939 Woodlock celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his entrance into the noviceship.
Woodlock’s health began to decline in the last year of his life, but his death came quickly and unexpectedly when he died on the evening of 11 April 1940. |