The Gillet Family: Brothers in Mission

Frs Cassian, Henry, and Silvan Gillet c1890

Earlier this month, Fr Arturo Sosa SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, celebrated Mass at St John’s College in Belize City to mark the 175th anniversary of the arrival of the Jesuits in Belize and to bless the newly renovated Fordyce Chapel. While researching the history of British Jesuit involvement in Belize for a news piece about the anniversary, I came across the remarkable story of four brothers - Henry, Anselm, Cassian and Silvin Gillet - who each entered the Society of Jesus, each volunteered for the foreign missions, and each died abroad. They all served in British Honduras (today Belize), and later in British Guiana and southern Africa. This is their story.

Henry, the eldest, born at Fleetwood in 1842, entered the Society in 1861. After theological studies at St Beuno’s, he was sent to British Honduras in 1876. The scarcity of priests required frequent transfers between Belize City, Corozal, Stann Creek and Orange Walk. Henry combined pastoral work with teaching and, for a time, edited the Catholic periodical the Angelus. When the Mission was transferred in 1893 from the English to the Missouri Province (now the USA Central and Southern Province), he later joined the Zambesi Mission in southern Africa. There he built two schools at Dunbrody and designed the high altar of the church, before serving in Salisbury (now Harare). He died in 1911, only days before his Golden Jubilee in the Society.

Fr Anselm Gillet

Anselm, born in 1848, followed his brother into the Society, though ill health initially interrupted his novitiate. After completing theological studies in Spain, where he was ordained and honed his Spanish in preparation for mission work, he sailed for British Honduras in 1882. His long-standing missionary vocation was short-lived: in December 1884 he died of fever, scarcely two years after his arrival. His death was deeply felt both locally and within the Province. F E Gaab, the Magistrate and Doctor of Orange Walk wrote: “Although he had only been here a few days, he was already exceedingly popular, and the sorrow at his early death is universal and heartfelt. So readily did everyone take to him that it seemed as if you had made a most fortunate selection.”

Cassian, born in 1850, made a lasting contribution to Catholic education in the colony. After experience in teaching in England and Malta, he arrived in British Honduras in 1885. In 1887 he founded St John’s College in Belize City to provide “solid mental and moral training” for the youth of the colony and neighbouring republics. The school opened with just fourteen students but grew steadily.

The College endured relocation, expansion and the devastation of the 1931 hurricane, yet it survived and developed. Today its Landivar campus includes the Fordyce Chapel, where earlier this month the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Arturo Sosa, celebrated Mass to mark the 175th anniversary of the Jesuits in Belize. After the mission was ceded to the Missouri Province, Cassian continued his work in British Guiana. When he died in New Amsterdam in 1904, large numbers attended his funeral.

Silvin, the youngest brother, born in 1856, entered the Society at eighteen and was ordained in 1886. He too requested assignment to British Honduras, serving in several of the same districts as Henry. Known for his geniality and practical skill, he later worked in the remote regions of British Guiana, where he was affectionately called the “Bishop of the North-West.” His sudden death in 1910 was widely mourned.

Little survives in the British Jesuit Archives concerning the Gillet brothers, though occasional letters home were printed in the Jesuit publication Letters and Notices. Taken together, their lives form a remarkable chapter in Jesuit missionary history. If you would like to find out more, please contact us.