Brother Bernard Elliot RIP

Br Bernard Elliot

Brother Bernard Elliot SJ, a Jesuit who was involved with the Jesuit Refugee Service in the UK from its earliest days, died on Monday, after a brief illness. He was 82. Over more than 30 years, Bernard supported refugees arriving, often destitute, in the UK and tried to 'accompany, serve and advocate' on their behalf.

Bernard Gerald Elliot was born in Macclesfield on 20 May 1929 and went to school at St John's, Alton, and then Cotton College in Staffordshire. On leaving school, he served his National Service with the Royal Artillery, largely as an instructor of radar, before working in marketing and advertising in the confectionery trade.

Bernard entered the Society of Jesus at Harlaxton, Lincs, in 1963, at the age of 34, and studied administrative skills and economics at Campion Hall in Oxford; both his father and younger brother had been accountants. After taking his vows as a brother in 1965, he spent four years at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire as sacristan, and returned there in 1973 after his tertianship at Corby Hall in Sunderland. From 1976, he was Master to the Lower Grammar boys at Stonyhurst, before being appointed to work in the Jesuit parish of St George's in Worcester.

After a brief term at the Community Centre in Boscombe, Dorset, Bernard moved in 1979 to Heythrop College in London, where his collaboration with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) began. For the next 32 years, he was to assist, work with and listen to refugees, detainees and asylum seekers through JRS, based first at Osterley, near Heathrow, then in various parts of London - Stamford Hill, Stockwell, London Bridge and finally, at the Hurtado Jesuit Centre in Wapping.

The Jesuit Refugee Service was started in 1980 by Father Pedro Arrupe SJ; in the UK, Bernard established a system of support for Vietnamese fleeing from the atrocities of their homeland and arriving as refugees here. Below is a link to an interview, first published in 2005 on the 25th anniversary of JRS International, which tells the story in Bernard's words.

Bernard's final years were spent as a member of the Wimbledon Jesuit Community, living in Feltham, Middlesex. He was admitted to St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey on 19 March 2012 and died there on 2 April 2012. May he rest in peace.

To read an interview with Br Bernard, see: www.jrsuk.net/about_us/background/

Source: JRS/Jesuit Comms