Francis Bickerstaffe-Drew

Rt Rev Msgr Count Francis Bickerstaffe-Drew, CBE, LLD (born Francis Browning Bickerstaffe) K.H.S., better known as John Ayscough, (11 February 1858 – 3 July 1928) was a British writer and Roman Catholic priest.

Biography

Born in Headingley, Leeds, the younger son of Harry Lloyd Bickerstaffe, an Anglican cleric, and Elisabeth Mona Brougham Drew, the daughter of daughter of Rev. Pierce Drew of Heathfield Towers, Muckridge, Youghal, County Cork, Ireland. He had one sibling, an elder brother, Pierce.

In 1878, he converted to Roman Catholicism, while an undergraduate at Pembroke College, Oxford. Bickerstaffe-Drew was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1884 and served as a chaplain in the British Army for more than thirty years. He was made a private Papal Chamberlain by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 and by Pius X in 1903, was a member of the Pontifical Chamber of Malta.

Rt Rev Msgr Francis Bickerstaffe-Drew died in Salisbury, England on 3 July 1928, aged 70.

Distinctions

• Honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame
• Honorary degree from the Marquette University
• Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre
• Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (1901)

Works