Eternal Memory: Father Gregory Winterton Cong.Orat.

Fr John Salter, chairman, writes in Chrysostom, Pascha 2012:


It was on St.Stephen's day 1954 that I last met Father Winterton. He was then Priest-in-charge of the Anglican church of St. George's, Wolverhampton. I was a young soldier at the time and serving at the High Mass. To the astonishment of the congregation Fr.Winterton announced in the sermon that he would not be observing the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity the following month as he had decided to make his submission to the Catholic Church. He had only been at St. George's a few months and he was received into the "Roman Communion" on Maundy Thursday 1955.

Fr Gregory was born in Brighton in 1922 and was baptized Cecil John. He was the eldest son of Major-General Sir John and Lady Winterton ( nee Shepherd-Cross) and joined the army himself early in World War II. I heard about Sir John Winterton's army career as my mother's cousin was an Aide- de-Camp to him when he was Commander-in-Chief in Austria and Military Governor of the Anglo-American Zone of Trieste, then a disputed city between Yugoslavia and Italy. The other Aide-de-Camp was Cecil Winterton.

 After the war Cecil went up to Cambridge and took a degree at St. Catherine's College, and then went on to the College of the Resurrection, run by an Anglican Order of monks at Mirfield in West Yorkshire. Bishop William Wand of London ordained him and he served his title at the new church of St.Joseph, Northolt, in the London diocese; from St. Joseph's he went to Wolverhampton. From Wolverhampton Cecil discovered the Birmingham Oratory, but too late to meet the last survivor of Newman's foundation, Father Denis Sheil. Archbishop Grimshaw of Birmingham sent him to train at the Oscott seminary, where he ordained him a deacon in 1961. He was priested in the Birmingham Oratory. He joined the Congregation of the Oratory in 1961 and took the name of Gregory. He dedicated his life to the parish of the Oratory and also to the promotion of the cause of John Henry Newman. Gregory's work was crowned with the beatification of Newman by Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Gregory became Provost of the Oratory in Birmingham and was the longest serving Provost since Cardinal Newman himself. His eyesight failed and he died at the age of 89. He was a long-standing member of the Society of St.John Chrysostom and he corresponded with me when I became  Chairman of the Committee and invited me to Birmingham to renew our acquaintance, but - alas! - I left it too late.