View source for C. C. Martindale

{{short description|English Jesuit priest and author (1879-1963)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| honorific_prefix = [[The Reverend]]
| name             = Cyril Martindale
| honorific_suffix = [[Society of Jesus|SJ]]
| image            = Cyril Charles Martindale (1879–1963).png
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| birth_date       = {{birth date|1879|05|25|df=yes}}
| birth_place      = [[London]], England
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1963|03|18|1879|05|25|df=yes}}
| death_place      = London, England
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| occupation       = Priest (Roman Catholic, Jesuit)
| nationality      = British
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| period           = 20th century
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| notable_works    = {{Unbulleted list|''The Life of Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson'' (1916)|''In God's Nursery'' (1913)|''The Goddess of Ghosts'' (1915)|''Bernard Vaughan S.J.'' (1923)|''The Mind of the Missal'' (1929)|''The Vocation of Aloysius Gonzaga'' (1929) | ''The Castle and the Ring'' (1950)}}
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'''Cyril Charlie Martindale''' {{post-nominals|post-noms=[[Society of Jesus|SJ]]}} (25 May 1879 – 18 March 1963) was a [[Priesthood (Catholic Church)|Roman Catholic priest]], scholar, and writer. Along with [[Martin D'Arcy]], he was one of England's foremost Catholics of the first half of the 20th century, and was a correspondent of figures including [[Graham Greene]], [[Evelyn Waugh]], and [[Ronald Knox]].<ref name="AmericaMag">{{cite web |last1=Bosco |first1=Mark |title=Kindred spirits: Catholic writers inspired by Jesuit friendships |url=https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/kindred-spirits |website=America Magazine |date=10 November 2015 |accessdate=6 June 2020}}</ref>
==Background and education==
Cyril Martindale was born on 25 May 1879 in Bayswater, London to Arthur Martindale and Marion McKenzie.<ref name=Makers>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924063262053/page/n171/mode/1up |title=The Catholic Encyclopedia and its Makers |publisher=[[The Encyclopedia Press]] |page=112 |year=1917 |access-date=2021-09-23 |via=archive.org}}</ref> As a boy at [[Harrow School]], he converted to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England.<ref name="Waugh-Knox">{{cite book |last1=Waugh |first1=Evelyn |title=The Life of Right Reverend Ronald Knox |date=1959 |publisher=Penguin Classics |location=London, UK |page=182 }}</ref>
He entered the [[Society of Jesus]] on 7 September 1897, beginning his novitiate at Manresa House in Roehampton before transferring to Aix-en-Provence, France due to ill health (a recurring theme throughout his career). After his novitiate he began Philosophy studies at St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst and later moved on to Pope's Hall (later [[Campion Hall, Oxford|Campion Hall]]) Oxford where he won multiple academic prizes, among them the Gaisford Prize with a translation of Virgil, ''Georgics'', iv, 450-547 (Greek verse) in 1904 and in the same year the Chancellor's Prize with 'Sertorius in 1904 (Latin verse).<ref>''Oxford University Calendar 1913'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913, 97, 102</ref><ref name="JIB">{{cite web |title=From the Archives: Fr Cyril Martindale SJ |url=https://www.jesuit.org.uk/blog/archives-fr-cyril-martindale-sj |website=Jesuits in Britain |accessdate=6 June 2020}}</ref> He gained a First in Literae Humaniores (then called 'Literis Humanioribus') in 1905.<ref>''Oxford University Calendar 1913'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913: 151</ref>
==Career and legacy==
After spending his regency teaching for three years at Stonyhurst and Roehampton, Martindale undertook his theological studies at St Beuno's but was moved at the end of his second year to [[Ore Place]], Hastings (home of the exiled French Jesuits), being there ordained in 1911.
Following his ordination Martindale returned to Oxford University for a position in the sub-faculty of Literae Humaniores.<ref name="JIB" /> According to Evelyn Waugh, he "dazzled and stimulated the most various undergraduates by his restless zeal, incisive diction, and by his modernity...[he] was loaded with academic distinctions, but he held aloof from High Tables."<ref>Waugh 1959, p. 278.</ref> He was likewise notable for his contributions as a champion of the Faith in debates in the [[Oxford Union]].<ref>Waugh 1959, p. 296.</ref>
In 1926, he was appointed by the Jesuit Provincial to organise the English Province's celebrations for the bi-centenary of Saints Aloysius and Stanislaus' canonisations. In 1927, he departed Oxford to take a position at [[Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street|Farm Street Church]], but continued a busy career of travel and writing. In 1928 he made a trip to Australia and New Zealand to participate in the International Eucharistic Congress at Sydney, in the course of which he was involved car accident thereafter suffering from persistent headaches throughout his life. During the inter-war period and after, he was a member of the committee supervising Ronald Knox's translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate.<ref>Waugh 1959, p. 375-378.</ref> Martindale was in Denmark at the outbreak of the Second World War,<ref>Waugh 1959, p. 380.</ref> and was held as a German detainee in Copenhagen until its end, during which he "had the happiness of receiving a certain number of people into the Church."<ref name="JIB" />
In the years following the Second World War, Martindale made two visits to Portugal, during which he conducted extensive research into the [[Miracle of the Sun|Miracle of Fátima]], and published ''The Message of Fatima'' in 1950.<ref name="JIB" />
He died in London on 18 March 1963.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/85849857/jesuit-leader-dies/ |title=Jesuit Leader Dies |newspaper=[[Star Tribune]] |location=London |agency=Reuters |page=15 |date=1963-03-19 |access-date=2021-09-23 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
A collection of Martindale's papers is online via the Catholic Heritage website.<ref>{{cite web |title=Fr Martin Cyril D'Arcy SJ (1888-1976) |url=https://archive.catholic-heritage.net/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=ABSI%2fSJ%2f21 |website=Catholic Heritage |accessdate=6 June 2020}}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
*[https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp97332/cyril-charlie-martindale Cyril Charlie Martindale] in the [[National Portrait Gallery (London)]].
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[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1963 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century English people]]
[[Category:20th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century British Roman Catholic priests]]
[[Category:20th-century English Jesuits]]
[[Category:English male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:British religious writers]]
[[Category:British Roman Catholic writers]]
[[Category:Contributors to the Catholic Encyclopedia]]