The Right Rev. Dom Aelred Carlyle (Benjamin Fearnley Carlyle 1874-1955) was an Anglo-Catholic who founded (c.1895) the first Anglican Benedictine community for monks since the Reformation. After several moves, Abbot Aelred’s community was established on Caldey Island, South Wales in 1906. When the Caldey Island community came into conflict with the Bishop of Oxford in 1913, Carlyle and most of his monks became Roman Catholic. This community moved to Prinknash Park in Gloucestershire in 1928. It established communities at Farnborough in 1947 and Pluscarden in 1948.

Abbot Aelred was also Visitor to two Benedictine women’s communities. The first, the Community of SS. Mary and Scholastica, founded in 1868, also became Roman Catholic in 1913, and now resides at Curzon Park, Chester. The second, the Community of the Holy Comforter, was an active Anglican sisterhood founded in 1891, which adopted the enclosed Benedictine life under Carlyle’s inspiration in 1906. This community remained Anglican and has resided at Malling Abbey since 1916. Thus 5 Benedictine communities owe their existence, wholly or in part, to the vision and initiative of Aelred Carlyle.

After some years as Abbot of Caldey, Carlyle was exclaustrated in 1921 and released from his Benedictine vows in 1935. He worked for many years as a missionary priest in Canada. On his retirement in 1951 he returned to England and became an oblate brother at Prinknash Abbey. In 1953 he was allowed to renew his solemn Benedictine vows. Thus, when he died in 1955 he was a full member of the community he had founded 60 years previously.

Carlyle was educated at Blundell's School and in 1892 commenced medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He did not complete his medical training.

[edit] References

Peter Anson, Abbot Extraordinary, 1958 (Faith Press)

[edit] External links

• Rene M. Kollar, 'Anglo-Catholicism in the Church of England, 1895-1913: Abbot Aelred Carlyle and the Monks of Caldey Island', The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 205-224