Admin_History | Fr Alexander Gits SJ was born in York 26 February 1887, one of four brothers. His father was from a Flemish background and his mother was of Italian origin but were both born in London. His family moved from York to Forest Hill to Scarborough. He later moved to Exeter where he joined a Protestant school. Gits joined the novitiate at Roehampton on 1 February 1910. He taught at Stonyhurst for a year and a half and then continued to teach for another year at St Michael’s College in Leeds and followed the usual course at St Beuno’s. He then became a priest later at a Parish in Sacred Heart in Leeds.
Gits completed his Tertianship between 1926-1927 in Tullamore in Ireland, then served at St Helens 1927-1932, St Aloysius’, Garnethill 1932-1935, St Walburge’s, Preston 1935-1937, and Loyola Hall, Rainhill 1937-1939. From 1939 to 1949 he was on a retreat mission at St Gabriel’s, Harborne, Birmingham. He returned to St Helen’s 1944 to 1948 and then worked at another retreat centre in Sunderland for a year. He went to Glasgow in 1949 where he remained for the rest of his life at St Aloysius’, Garnethill. From 1950 to 1965 he was a Spiritual Father at the college and for the parish men. He died 18 November 1982. |