Also Served: Revd. William Fitzmaurice - Revd. William FITZMAURICE
Our Lady's Catholic Church Chaplain to The Forces, 4th Class 
Born in Ashton-in-Makerfield on 26th June 1877, the son of Myles and Sarah, the Fitzmaurice family moved to Prescot and lived at Eccleston Lodge on St Helens Road. William won a scholarship to St Francis Xavier's in Liverpool, after which he went so Stoneyhurst College. On November 17th 1897 he joined the Society of Jesus at Roehampton. The 1901 census showed him as a student priest at Maureen House in Roehampton.
After completing his studies, he taught at Beaumont College from 1904 to 1910. At the time of the 1911 census, he was aged 33 and was a Clerk in Holy Orders at St Buenas College, Trimechiose, St Asaph, where he was undertaking his theological studies, being ordained there on 21st September 1913. He gave his first sermon at Our Lady's and St Joseph in Prescot, after which he moved to St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, Eire.
On the outbreak of the war he applied for and was granted a commission as Chaplain to the Forces (4th Class) on 24th September 1914. His initial posting was as Military Chaplain to the forces on Salisbury Plain, though this only lasted until November 1914, at which point he was attached to the 15th Field Ambulance and posted to France. He was listed in the Prescot Reporter list of Catholic Men serving with the forces in May of 1915.
In January 1916, he was attached to the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, an attachment that continued until the left the army after the war.
It is reported that he met his brother-in-law Thomas Maxwell on the Somme in 1916. Thomas had married William's sister, Teresa, in Prescot in 1904.
In 'The Cross and The Sword' (Johnstone & Hagerty, 1996), it states that William was wounded in mid-1917 at Messines but that he later returned to the front. He was Mentioned In Dispatches on 21st December 1917. Although details of the actions are not know, William was taken prisoner on 22nd March 1918 and remained in captivity at Holtzminden until the end of the war. He was listed on the 'Exonerated Officers List' No 4. His address immediately after the war was Balfour House, Finsbury Pavement, London.
The Liverpool Echo reported Fr Fitzmaurice missing on 13th April 1918
'The Cross and The Sword' goes on to state (p. 170), (page 170) "Fr Fitzmaurice had received the MC for service at Messines Ridge in 1917, and was mentioned in dispatches; he was also recommended for the French Legion d'Honneur for 'constant bravery and endurance', but received instead the Croix de Guerre avec Palme. During his time in a prison camp when he received a Red Cross parcel he gave the biscuits it contained to German children. Fr Fitzmaurice was present at the Battle of Langemarck with 16th Division; on bleak Frezenberg Ridge he heard the confession of Fr Willie Doyle fifteen minutes before Fr Willie was blown to pieces."
The suggested date for his Military Cross does not tally with the citation, shown below, which was published in August 1916 when it is assumed he was serving on The Somme.
After the war, William spent some time in Prescot but then became a Parish priest at St John's in Upholland, Wigan. On 11th November 1923 he assisted at the unveiling service of the Mons memorial to the Royal Irish Regiment.
He later became Superior of St Aloysius in Oxford from 1931 to 1933, after which he lived at the House of Retreats for Men at Corby Hall in Sunderland.
William died in Marylebone in London in 1945, aged 68
Additional Sources:- Stoneyhurst War Record; The Catholics Who's Who (1937), John Curd (Southport)
The London Gazette, 19th August 1916
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