Page 12, 2nd December 1916
• HAVERSTOCK HILL: THE MAYOR OF HAMPSTEAD AT MASS.—
Alderman E. A. O’Bryen, J.P., the Mayor of Hampstead, attended the Priory Church of St. Dominic, Haverstock Hill, on Sunday morning at the High Mass. The object with which he assisted in state at Mass was set forth in some eloquent words from the pulpit by Prior Robert Bracey, C.E. The Mayor was accompanied by the Mayoress and the following colleagues: Alderman Randall ; Councillors Munich, K.S.G., Snow and John, the Town Clerk; Mr. W. P. Johnson ; and some nine membersof the Borough Council. The Prior, who preached, said he always considered it a fortunate circumstance that their parish was within the metropolitan boroughs of Hampstead and St. Pancras, because that circumstance gave them a right to share in the interests and grand historical memories of two important districts of London. They welcomed the Mayor and Council of the Borough of Hampstead—it was a very great pleasure so to do, and they esteemed it a very great honour— because Hampstead was a place with a very glorious and interesting past, and when the Mayor came to church in their midst he (the preacher) thought he represented not only the citizens of Hampstead at the present time, but all who had dwelt there in past ages. He summed up and represented, in his own person, all those glorious and interesting personages of long ago. It was a great pleasure to them to welcome any representative of public authority, because loyalty was a principle of the Catholic religion inculcated by their Faith, and not a matter of whim or sentiment. This loyalty went out in the first place to the national authorities—to the king—but it was also paid in its measure to the municipal authorities, represented by the mayor, in the place where Catholics dwelt. Again, this loyalty was willingly paid to those authorities, whatever their private character might be ; but it was much more willingly paid where rulers were men of integrity, leading an upright life. The homage they rendered to the Mayor of Hampstead was accentuated, because the knew him to be a man of upright life and forward in every good work, in which he was admirably assisted by the Mayoress. The Prior then went on to show that though, in these days, a Mayor assisting in state at Mass was something of a novelty, Alderman O’Bryen was but doing what the celebrated Sir Richard Whittington did of generations of lord mayors did both before and after him.. Then setting forth the sublime mysteries of the Mass, the preacher referred to the intentions they all had in mind at this time of national crisis—an honourable victory and the triumph of truth and justice, aid for those bravely fighting in this great struggle, and eternal repose for tho e who had already fallen. A special collection was made at the Mass for providing Christmas comforts for wounded soldiers and sailors in the Borough of Hampstead, a scheme which the Mayor has much at heart.
