St Francis Xavier’s is home to a great poet. In December 1879, Father Gerard Manley Hopkins joined St Francis Xavier’s from the parish of Bedford Leigh, near Manchester. He was at Liverpool for less than two years but is, without question, St Francis Xavier’s most famous priest. On the Lansdale Street wall of the church is a plaque honouring the fact that Father Hopkins served in the parish. He became one of England’s great poets but it has to be said that he was unhappy during his time in Liverpool. He was born in Stratford in Essex into a fairly prosperous family and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He became a Catholic in 1866 and was received into the Church by Cardinal Newman. Hopkins was a deeply sensitive and spiritual man but he suffered from poor health and seemed unsuited to pastoral work. The day to day problems which confronted a priest in a huge inner city parish, where many people were living in appalling conditions, profoundly depressed him. In a letter to his mother, written on April 30th 1880 in the presbytery at No 8 Salisbury Street, he wrote: “The work of Easter week was so hard and I happened to catch a bad cold which led to earache and deafness. I felt wrenched for some time. Neither am I very strong now and, as long as I am in Liverpool, I do not see how I can be.” A month later, he sat in his confessional in the church and wrote to his friend, Baillie, in a letter which seems to carry us back in time: “My Liverpool work is harassing and makes it hard to write. Tonight I am sitting in my confessional but the faithful are fewer than usual and I am unexpectedly delivered from a sermon which otherwise I should have had to be delivered of. Here comes someone.” After he left Francis Xavier's he wrote "My Liverpool experience laid upon my mind a conviction, a truly crushing conviction, of the misery of town life to the poor and, more than to the poor, of the misery of the poor in general, of the degradation even of our race, of the hollowness of this century's civilization. It made even life a burden to me to have daily thrust upon me the things I saw."

The church was not just for Sunday. Many clubs and associations were started in this period and quickly began to thrive. The men of St Francis Xavier’s had long been associated with the Brotherhood of St Vincent de Paul though, due to lack of records, it is not possible to say when the church started its own SVP conference. Similarly, many of the ladies of the church were in a sort of Sodality as early as 1858 but, here again, records are sketchy. The Women’s Sodality and the Children of Mary officially came into being on Sunday, December 8th 1878, when 51 women became members. On May 23rd 1881, a men’s meeting was held and this resulted in the formation of the Men’s Sodality. It was in 1883 that the exterior of St Francis Xavier’s began to look more like the church which is so familiar today. The church acquired its beautiful steeple, thanks to money bequeathed by Miss Rosson.

The church was frequently packed to capacity and there were many occasions when people were unable to get into Mass or to listen to great preachers. They came from all parts of Liverpool and even parishioners who lived close to the church had to arrive early to make sure of getting in. By the time Father Murphy became rector in 1885, it was clear that the church was not large enough and the decision was taken to build a chapel in honour of Our Lady. The foundation stone of the chapel, known as the Sodality Chapel, was laid on June 21st 1885 by the reverent Bernard O’Reilly, Bishop of Liverpool. The chapel was completed in two years; the Interior was made from Bath stone while the exterior stone, appropriately enough, came from Storeton the Wirral. The Sodality Chapel is very beautiful and is deeply cherished by parishoners. It is in this chapel that they celebrate Mass on weekdays and most Sundays. The main church is used for special occasions.

The main Altar of the sodality Chapel is the altar of the Annunciation, the chief feature of which is a beautiful panel of white marble which contains finely sculpted figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus, two angels and various Jesuit saints including St Ignatius of Loyola and St Francis Xavier. On October 27th 1889, after solemn procession around the church, The Book of Life containing the 1545 names of those who helped to build the sodality Chapel and 275 relics of saints were placed under this altar. Also in the Sodality Chapel is the much loved statue of Our Lady at the foot of which so many generations of St Francis Xavier’s parishioners have prayed. The statue, which was originally made in 1854, was remodeled in 1904. It was officially unveiled on February 2nd 1904 as a memorial of the fiftieth anniversary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception.

It is, perhaps, difficult today, when St Francis Xavier’s stands in an area which bears many of the scars of urban decay, to appreciate the enormously important role it played in Liverpool life one hundred years ago. St Francis Xavier’s was also important in the lives of people from all over the Merseyside area, especially in the field of music. In 1883, the St Francis Xavier choir came under the control of a well known Catholic Professor of Music, Mr. John Ross. Such was his success that the organ loft was soon too small for his choir. It was extended and supported with pillars to give us the organ loft we have today.