Each year in July, the Diocese celebrates the memory of Nicholas Postgate, martyr-priest of the Moors, by a rally and Mass held alternately at Ugthorpe and at Egton Bridge. The Postgate Society exists to foster devotion in general and at all times to Fr Postgate and to the rest of the English Martyrs, those who have been made saints, those who have been declared blessed and those whose cases have been deferred until further evidence can be obtained.

The first of the English Martyrs to be declared saints were Ss John Fisher and Thomas More. That was in 1935, four hundred years after the date of their martyrdom. In that same year, the Postgate Society was founded at the Sisters of Mercy’s Endsleigh Convent and teacher training college in Hull. This is as recalled by Sr Mary Cecily in the 1970s in letters sent to Bishop McClean and surviving in the Diocesan archives. Fr David Quinlan, in his book ‘The Father Postgate Story’, mentions books and prints relative to Fr Postgate and other martyr-priests being bequeathed to the Endsleigh Community in 1935 by Rev Mother Stanislaus. He dates the actual founding of the Society to 1951 but Sr Cecily’s letters speak of a ‘re-vivification’ about that time rather than a first beginning.

Apart from the preservation of Mother Stanislaus’ collection, the sisters at Endsleigh sought to spread devotion to the martyrs by means of the Society and the involvement of their students in it. Prayer for the beatification of Fr Postgate and his fellow martyrs was a prime activity and research was also undertaken into the lives of the martyrs by a student committee. People outside Endsleigh were able to become members on payment of a subscription and as many as five hundred joined up across the country, the return for membership being remembrance in special Masses and receipt of a thrice-yearly newsletter. Yearly pilgrimages were also held from Endsleigh to Whitby, Egton and Ugthorpe during which (according to the recollections of Mgr Kevin Coughlan, in those days a curate in Hull) the pilgrims were welcomed with tea and fresh scones by Mrs Hill at the ‘Old Hall’, Ugthorpe. Numerous of the Mercy sisters contributed to the Society (Fr Quinlan mentions Sr M Richard as a particularly active researcher and transcriber) and they also passed on their work to others, founding (according to Quinlan) the Hull Historical Society. Sr M Cecily turned her many talks about the martyrs to groups of various denominations into the pamphlet ‘Some Yorkshire Martyrs’ published in 1976 – at least, it would appear to be her work from the fact that a typescript version of the pamphlet (on scraps of paper of varying sizes) together with her covering letter survives in the correspondence with Bishop McClean.

Oversight of the Postgate Society had, however, passed from Endsleigh before 1976, partly because of its demise as a training college a couple of years earlier. Appropriately enough, it was members of the Society living around Egton Bridge who now produced the newsletters and acted as Secretary. The names of Alwyn Lonsdale and Mildred Raw were prominent but many others helped. In 1962, as parish priest at Egton Bridge, Fr David Quinlan had founded the Postgate Centre there, independent of the Society but doing similar work in promoting the cause. Various relics and items associated with Fr Postgate were collected into the Centre and displayed but the Centre did not long survive Fr Quinlan’s enforced retirement from the parish due to ill-health. The Society therefore remained as key to maintaining devotion.

In 1970, forty of the English Martyrs had been canonised through the efforts and the petitioning of the Bishops of England and Wales. The choice of those forty was, according to official publications, ‘because of a long-standing or growing devotion to these more than to the remaining martyrs’. Many in our Diocese were disappointed not to see Fr Postgate’s name amongst the forty and the first ‘Postgate Rally’, held in 1974, was a direct response to the perceived lack of a strong local display of prayer and devotion to him. Bernard Connelly, a leading light in organising that first rally, described the event in the Postgate Society newsletter for December 1997 (reprinted in the Catholic Voice, July 1998). Held at Ugthorpe, the rally was almost washed away by a summer deluge but imaginations had been fired and there has been an annual rally ever since.

The success of the rallies in demonstrating local devotion to Fr Postgate was proved by his inclusion amongst the eighty five martyrs declared blessed on 22nd November 1987. It may be, however, that beatification made some people think that the work was done with regard to Fr Postgate and the other martyrs. Membership of the Postgate Society has waned greatly despite the efforts of Fr Terence Richardson and the Benedictine community at Osmotherley who took on secretary-ship of the Society in the early 1990s and continued it until Fr Terence was transferred to a Lancashire parish in 2006. Currently, efforts are being made to check membership records and promote the Society anew. Newsletters are still issued and support is given to those working on publications about Fr Postgate and, most especially, prayer is encouraged asking the intercession of Fr Postgate for the Church and for vocations, and prayer also for his own eventual canonisation. Applications for membership of the Postgate Society should be directed to Fr Dominique Minskip at English Martyrs parish, York.