Hugh Pope
Henry Vincent Pope, better known as Fr. Hugh Pope (1869–1946), was an English Dominican biblical scholar, Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the "Pontificium Collegium Internationale Angelicum", the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, "Angelicum" in Rome. Early biography. Henry Vincent Pope was born at Kenilworth on 6 August 1869, the first son of Richard Vercoe Pope by his second wife, Elizabeth A. Phillips. His father was a convert to Roman Catholicism who taught at the Oratory School in Birmingham. Formation. Pope was educated at the Oratory School, Birmingham, and at Queen's College, Birmingham (a predecessor  college of Birmingham University), where he studied medicine. Pope entered the Dominican Order at Woodchester 29 September 1891. He studied philosophy at Woodchester until 1894. In 1894 he was transferred to Hawkesyard as a member of the first community there. He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Ilsley of Birmingham in September 1896. Pope was sent to Louvain to complete his theological studies becoming a lector in sacred theology there in 1898. Career. Pope was assigned to Hawkesyard as professor of sacred Scripture in 1898 also serving as librarian. From 1904 to 1907 he was subprior of Hawkesyard. In  1909 he passed the examination in Sacred Scripture before the Biblical Commission in Rome and received a doctorate in sacred theology. In 1908 Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P., the 76th Master General of the Order of Preachers appointed Pope professor of New Testament Exegesis at the "Pontificium Collegium Internationale Angelicum", the future Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, "Angelicum" in Rome. Cormier created Pope a Master of Sacred Theology in 1911. However, in 1913 Pope was accused of modernism and had to leave Rome. He returned to England. In 1914 he became prior of Woodchester. Woodchester Wayside Cross. In 1915 after  the deaths in World War I of two parishioners and the Priory's garden boy, who had been adopted by the Dominican Brothers, Father Pope sought to memorialize these men. A Wayside Cross was placed on high ground by the side of the road running by the Priory. The cross came to memorialize not only the fallen residents of the village, but soldiers from South Africa, Australia, Canada and France. Dedicated on 3 June 1917, it was likely the first World War I memorial erected in Britain. On its centennial anniversary the memorial was rededicated, the Princess Royal and other  local dignitaries attending. Pope died in Edinburgh on 23 November 1946. A memorial volume was published as Kieran Mulvey, "Hugh Pope of the Order of Preachers" (London: Blackfriars Publications, 1954).