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SFX STARTED IN A PUB
On 21st January 1840 a group of men met in the Rose and Crown pub in Cheapside, Liverpool (it’s still there) to form themselves into a committee to build a church which was to be presented to the Jesuit provincial.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
spent a period at SFX Primary School, from 29th October 1900, when his family worked in the theatres of Liverpool
SPRING HEELED JACK
was a caped phantom who appeared in various parts of the country towards the end of the 19th century. His last sighting was in September 1904, when he jumped of the roof of the church into Haigh Street and the disappeared down William Henry Street.
EIGHT BELLS
The tower of SFX Church holds the only full peal of 8 bells of any Catholic Church in Liverpool and one of only 28 Catholic churches in the country. They were installed in 1870 and renovated in 2003. In the1920s a song ‘The Bells of St Francis Xavier’s’ was published in sheet music form.
FIRST CATHOLIC PRIEST
The first Catholic priest to live in Liverpool after the Reformation was a Jesuit, Fr William Gillibrand SJ. He lived over a greengrocer in, what is now, North John Street.
SIR CHARLES SANTLEY
who was Queen Victoria’s favourite baritone, and one of the first people to make a recording of his voice, started his career in SFX Choir.
GOUNOD PREMIERE
SFX was the venue for the British premier of Gounod’s Messe Solennelle de Paques, which was sung on 31st May 1885.
THE FIRST CATHOLIC LORD MAYOR OF LIVERPOOL
Alderman Justin Harford held his civic High Mass at SFX in November 1943.
JOHN GREGSON
This famous, post-war, attended SFX College and starred in many films in the 1950s and 60s.
JIMMY McGOVERN
the film and television playwright was born in the parish and went to the primary school and then SFX College.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS SJ
the famous poet, was part of the SFX parish staff for two years from 1888. During this time he wrote two poems: Felix Randall and Spring and Fall (plus – possibly – At a Wedding March).
FILMS AND TV PLAYS
SFX has provided the location for: Morning in the Streets (BBC groundbreaking documentary 1959, scripted by Frank Shaw), Distant Voices Still Lives (Terence Davies – who went to SFX College)), Bread (several episodes, including a Christmas Special), The Southbank Show – Hindermat the composer, Liam (Jimmy McGovern), The Virgin of Liverpool (Gil Brailey), L1 (police series) and a solemn high Mass, televised in 1960 – plus several others. In 1997 the musical ‘Godspell’ was performed for 3 nights in the nave.
ARCHBISHOPS & BISHOPS
Fr Thomas Roberts was Rector of SFX in the 1930s when he learned that he had been appointed Archbishop of Bombay. He was the last British appointment to an Indian See and resigned early in order to allow a local person to be archbishop.
An earlier Rector, Fr Porter, was also appointed a bishop in India.
Bishop Vincent Malone (former auxiliary in Liverpool) and Bishop Paul Gallagher, the Pope’s representative in Burundi, both attended SFX College and worshipped in SFX Church.
FIRST CATHOLIC DAY COLLEGE
SFX College was founded in 1842 and was the first of its type in the country. The College, which is still in operation, moved to Woolton in the early 1960s and in the mid 1980s the Jesuits handed over the running of the school to the Brothers of Christian Schools.
TWO VICTORIA CROSSES
Gabriel George Coury and Paul Aloysius Kenna both attended SFX College at the turn of the 19th Century and, as such, regularly worshipped in SFX church. They later moved to Stonyhurst College and were latterly awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery during the First World War.
LARGEST CATHOLIC PARISH
Until the earlier 1960s, SFX boasted that it was the largest Catholic parish in England – with over 13,000 Catholics within its boundary - by the end of the 1960s, as a result of ‘slum’ clearance, it was one of the smallest!
TREASURES
SFX has one of the largest – and most beautiful - collections of church vestments in the North West. Its oldest vestment was used in the court of the French king at Versailles. It also has an impressive collection of church plate, including a reliquary containing a piece of the St Thomas More’s hair shirt and a piece of the rope used to bind St Edmund Campion before his martyrdom.
LIVERPOOL FC’s TRAINING GROUND
used to belong to SFX College and was named Melwood Bridge after Fr James Bridge SJ, who was the Rector when it was bought, in the 1920s it for use as playing fields. After Liverpool FC bought it from the College they dropped the ‘Bridge’ and just called it Melwood.
WAR DEAD
The war memorial and the back of the church commemorates 180 parishioners who died in active service during the First World War and 130 who died, serving in the armed forces, during the Second World War.
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