Monsignor George Wallis

HE Francis Cardinal Bourne

I found a visiting card in an old baptismal register recently, it belonged to Mgr Wallis one of my illustrious predecessors. I am afraid our archives are a bit sad, another of my predecessors had a great clear out there is virtually nothing. Papers, vestments, candlesticks where either thrown out or sold. One of my parishioners called it the Great Despoilation, lace albs were sold in old clothes shops as night dresses, the big six were found in a junk shop in Lewes and were brought by a kindly parishioner in the hope of better times, a couple of sets of embroidered vestments were saved in the same way, the rest were sent to Walsingham then given away to an Anglican Church in East Anglia.

So this visiting card is an important connection to the past. Monsignor Wallis, was the wartime parish priest here. Some of our parishioners remember Messrs Belloc and Chesterton being taken into the house after the High Mass to discuss the sermon. Some remember Monsignor saying throughout the war, "I am your father in God, if you have problems or difficulties, my children, come to me, I cannot not turn you away".

He was English but was educted in France and studied at the Gallican college and spoke with a marked French accent all his life.

According to the oral tradition he had been a Master of Ceremonies at one of the minor Roman Basilicas and was recruited by Cardinal Bourne to fulfil that position at Westminster. Apparently he was the M.C. for the consecration. His time there ended when during some ceremony in the the 1930s, some mention it was the liturgical reception of the King of Portugal, apparently the Cardinal refused to obey some instruction, so Wallace left the sanctuary, only to be summoned back by a message from Bourne saying that as long as Wallis was Master of Ceremonies he would be obeyed in every liturgical matter. Immediately after the ceremony he was summoned into the presence and told he was no longer the Master of Ceremonies. Archbishop Amigo of Southwark, Bourne spent most of his time in Westminster trying to create a diocese of London and oust Amigo from south London, immediately offered Wallace this parish.

Apart from this story, the fact he had a butler, acted as celebrant from time to time at Brompton Oratory, refused to allow hand kissing in the liturgy, took a one day holiday a year to take the altar servers to the circus in a hired Daimler and encouraged plainchant, he used to say, "We are the chant parish, if you want polyphony go to the Sacred Heart", the parish next door in Hove, I know nothing about him.