The First Processional Image
A pilgrim enquired about two photographs printed in Michael Yelton’s
Alfred Hope Patten: his life and times in pictures (2007), a supplement to his
2006 definitive biography of Fr Patten. The later book contained the overflow of
photographs left out of the biography, arranged in no particular order, with brief
captions. The two in question (on pages 53 & 71 [left]) are in the Archives
collection but had not appeared before on the Walsingham Archives website. The
honorary archivist posted them on Twitter (@olwarchives), hoping to learn more.
Here is all the information we have found, and more photographs, some undated,
belonging to the Shrine and to the Sisters. If anyone can contribute information or
comments, please do so.
In late 1932 the processional image was recorded as a gift to the Shrine.
On 19 July 1933 the image was used - that one almost certainly for the first time -
on the day of the Mass at the Halifax Altar in the Shrine grounds, marking the
Centenary of the Oxford Movement.
from Our Lady’s Mirror Spring & Summer & Autumn 1933
"In the evening Vespers were sung pontifically in the grounds at the pavilion [the
Halifax Altar], and then there was a long procession in honour of Our Lady, in which
the beautiful image made last autumn for this purpose was carried. A station was
made, as usual, and the Magnificat was sung before returning to the altar for
Benediction, at the conclusion of which all the pilgrims went to the Holy House and
sung the Credo, Salve and Te Deum.”
At first glance the statue above looked so like that in the Sisters’ Chapel
(right), that they could be one and the same - but the differences are clear.
The Sisters kindly carried out their own research and told us that their 38-
inch statue was signed ‘K[arel] Dupon’. [from an old-established family of
Belgian sculptors].
1933
Recent research by a pilgrim has identified three early
processional statues. A first, of which we have no
photograph, was in use by 1926. A second was used in
the 1933 celebrations, and thereafter. A third was first
seen in 1947 and used until the late 1950s.
1933
1933
1947
1947
1933
1947
1947
