Fr Gerald Hughes, a monk of Ampleforth Abbey, has died at the age of 80. Fr Gerald died peacefully in his sleep on 31 August 2009 while on holiday with family relations in York.

He was educated at Ampleforth and in 1947 went to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery and served in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) from late 1948 until November 1952.

A year later he joined the Benedictine community at Ampleforth, making his Solemn Vows in 1957 and was ordained priest in July 1960. Fr Gerald spent the next 26 years teaching at Ampleforth Preparatory School, Gilling Castle, including a brief period as Acting Headmaster.

Following his years in the school he then devoted more than 20 years to work in some of the parishes run by the monastic community, including St Mary, Cardiff, St Benedict in Ampleforth village itself, and, from 1997, St Austin in the Grassendale district of Liverpool.

Fr Gerald’s body will be received into the Abbey Church at Ampleforth on Sunday 6 September 2009 at 8.15 p.m. Solemn Sung Funeral Mass will take place at 11.30 a.m. in the Abbey Church on Monday 7 September, followed by burial in the Monks’ Wood.

May he rest in peace.