John Groser, Man of God

Jack Boggis (from The Christian Socialist no.32, May 1966)

The passing of Father Groser means a great loss to Christian Socialism. Many of us remember his great address at the inaugural meeting of C.S.M. and his devotion to the Movement he helped to form and from which he hoped so much. This tribute from Jack Boggis was originally published in Cosmos and we are grateful to the Master of the Royal Foundation of St Katharine for permission to reprint.

At the time of my first meeting with John Groser, I was an atheist, and a member of the Communist Party. He and Jack Bucknell were then Assistant Priests at St. Michael’s Poplar, and were invited to speak to an outdoor meeting organised by the Central Southwark Labour Party. My father was the caretaker of the building which housed the Party Offices, and the Agent told me one day that two Communist priests were coming to speak, I remember well my scornful reply: "There are no Communists outside the Communist Party!" But I went to the meeting, and a very queer do it was. Two tall priests in cassocks which had a sort of monk's cowl attachment, white silk mufflers instead of dog-collars, accomapnied by a number of young persons with a Crucifix, a Red Flag and a St. George’s Flag. They spoke: of the Kingdom of God on earth, and the kind of society Jesus wanted us to build, and I was very interested indeed. This was dangerous stuff: far more dangerous than the usual "pie in the sky when you die" dope against which I had rebelled soon after my Confirmation. I engaged in heated argument with them after the meeting had ended, One of my opponents was Charles Warner, now the Rector of Farnham Royal, who, on. hearing me boast that I was a member of the Communist Party, blandly assured me that he too belonged to a Communist organisation which had 400 million members; "How many members has yours got?" He was referring, I learned, to the Catholic Church, for the Ministry of which he was then preparing at Mirfleld. John and Jack, as we always called them, were members of the Catholic Crusade, and I was invited to their study group at Poplar, a very lively body of keen young people who discussed every aspect of the application of the Christian religion to the social, political and economic problems of the day. Through my association with this group, and particularly with Fr. Jack and Fr. John, I was led back to the Church and Sacraments, and it was Charles Warner who put me in touch with Mirfield, so that I was eventually able to follow the vocation I found through the Poplar group of the Catholic Crusade. 

From that time I enjoyed a friendship with John and Mary Groser and their family which has persisted through all these years, We were all members of the Crusade, and the theology and practice of that movement expressing itself in a truly revolutionary Christian Socialism, rooted in the Catholic Faith, and the richness of the fellowship nurtured by the common outlook and social life of the members, was to be our inspiration in later years in the poverty of Stepney in the hungry 30's. It is probably difficult for many people today to realise the almost total inadequacy of the education received at an Elementary School by a lad who left in 1919 at the age of 14 to go and work for his living, as a preparation (academically at least) for the Ministry of the Church. Mirfield sent me to Fr. Hand's Ordination Prep. School in Norfolk to see whether I could learn enough in one term to justify Fr. Hand in recommending that I go on to Knutsford to take Matric. in one more year. I knew nothing at all of Greek or Latin, practically nothing of Algebra, and not very much of anything else. Had it not been for the constant encouragement of Fr, John, and the zeal for the Church and the Kingdom of God which he had imbued me, I do not think I could have done it. And, should these words be printed, and meet Mary's eye, let it be known that when I say "Fr. John", I always mean Mary too. Their home was always open to me, and I was sustained by the patient wisdom of Fr. John and the Christian love of their household.

While I battled on to defeat the examiners at Knutsford, Leeds and Mirfield, Fr. John fell on bad times. He was in the tradition of the Apostles who had been accused of "turning the world upside down", (or right side up, as we used to say) and although never what is meant by the term "communist", he was a revolutionary. Such are never really popular in the modern Church, and Fr. John was regarded by many in authority as a "pestilent priest". Perhaps Cosmos will one day print an article on the diminution, if not the extinction, of the prophetic voice in the Church of today. At any rate, Fr. John was persecuted. The word is not too strong. After leaving St. Michael's, nothing was offered to him for a very long time. He ate the bread of charity, which, although offered with love, can be bitter to eat, and for a priest of his calibre to be deprived of opportunities of fulfilling his vocation is a soul-wounding experience, besides being a great loss to the Church. After threatening that he would have to apply to the Poor Law for relief, he was at last made priest-in-charge of the almost derelict Christ Church, Watney Street in Stepney. A Commission had, I believe, been sitting to decide whether it should be closed altogether, but within six months, Fr. John had built up a local congregation around a nucleus Crusaders and their friends from East London. When I left Mirfield, he gave me my Title, and trained me in the work and discipline of a priest. Each day began with Mass, and all our work was based upon regular prayer and intercession, He was a great believer in visiting, and woe betide me if I was in the house between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. on any day. The people loved him. He was resolute to the point of obstinacy in many ways, and yet lie had a heart of compassion such as I have never met since. None of us could fail to be deeply moved by the incredible poverty of those days of mass unemployment, of the cruel means test, and the bullying Relieving officers, and the extent of Fr. John's personal and private charity cannot even be guessed at. I know we lived at a standard which any working class family of today would regard as insufficient, and Mary, I'm sure, gathered a few grey hairs as she tried to spread her housekeeping allowance, not only to supply us, but a large number of people who had to be fed; beggars who called at the door were never sent empty away, but given a meal and a "chit" for a bed at the Church Army Hostel. The heart of Fr. John's religion, in its social aspect, was that nothing is more important than a person. He tended to avoid such phrases as "living souls", because it is so easy to forget that "living souls" have bodies which need to be fed, clothed, and housed. So he fought for these things for them.

The Gospel was not confined to the church, but carried into the streets, where regular open air meetings were held where we proclaimed the Christian Socialism we believed (and which I still believe) could solve the problems of poverty. A book could be written of those days of the General Strike, when Fr. John wanted to obtain peaceful access by some striking dockers to the building in which their leaders were meeting, so that the men could hear whatever announcement should be made. He shouted his request to the Inspector in charge of the two rows of police lined up across the road, was beckoned forward, and struck down by a policeman's baton as soon as he readied them. The police then charted the peaceful strikers, arresting several, and next day at Thames Police Court, produced a trunk load of bits of iron piping and so on which they said they had taken from the men. I was not there, but I accept Fr. John's word that this was a "frame-up"; Or of when he, enraged by the activities of the Police in arresting inoffensive unemployed men on the charge of "loitering with intent to commit a felony", dressed himself in his oldest clothes and peered into several parked cars in a highly suspicious manner in order to get himself arrested; Or of the welcome in the Parish Hall to the footsore Hunger Marchers; Or the great Rent Strike, when Fr. John had over £5,000 of unpaid rent in his account: the list of possibilities is endless, and all of them sprang from his intense compassion and love of persons.

I left him to continue my ministry elsewhere, but we kept in touch, and I heard of his activities during the war years. Christ Church was destroyed and Fr. John and his staff transferred to nearby St. George-in-the-East to carry on the work they had been doing among the people who slept in air raid shelters night after night: a ministry of Compline, comfort, and cocoa which sustained and cheered many a weary body and frightened soul. When the war ended, he went to St. Katharine's and I followed him as Rector of St. George's: no easy task. If I did not utterly fail, it was because of the foundation Fr. John had laid at St. George's, and in me. He was the complete Parish Priest: a man of prayer, a convincing preacher, a true Father, a lover of persons. The Church is the poorer by his going, and many will feel a. sense of grievous personal loss, for he was indeed a "man, greatly beloved" and deservedly so. May he rest in peace.

Back to History page  |  Back to St John Beverley Groser