Initiation

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Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was an English Anglican priest who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1903 and was ordained a priest the following year. The youngest son of Archbishop Edward White Benson, he was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied classics and theology. After his father's sudden death in 1896, Benson traveled to the Middle East to recover his health, during which he began to question the Church of England and explore the claims of Catholicism. Initially aligned with the High Church tradition, he joined the Community of the Resurrection in 1901, unaware that he would soon leave the Anglican Church. On September 11, 1903, he converted to Catholicism and was later awarded the Dignitary of Honour of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. As a priest in Cambridge, he continued to write, producing notable works including the dystopian novel Lord of the World (1907) and various ghost stories. Appointed a supernumerary private chamberlain to the Pope in 1911, he was styled Monsignor. Benson passed away in 1914 while preaching in Salford and was buried at his home in Hare Street, Hertfordshire, where a chapel dedicated to St Hugh was later built. He also contributed to the local Catholic church, known as the Benson Memorial Church.