The Rt. Rev. Aloysius Smith

The Rt. Rev. Aloysius Smith was the eldest brother of Reginald George Smith, one of the saloon stewards on Titanic. This is his obituary-

FIRST ABBOT OF BODMIN

The Rt. Rev. Abbot Aloysius Smith, C.R.L., First Abbot of Bodmin and former Abbot-General of the Canons Regular of the Lateran, died on Saturday in hospital at Hayle, Cornwall, where he had been in failing health for some months. He would have celebrated his eighty-seventh birthday on August 25.
Born at Weymouth, Dorset, he was educated at schools of the Canons Regular in Rome and was ordained in 1897 after which he took his doctorate in theology. Three years later he was appointed to St. Mary’s, Bodmin, as Prior where he held office until 1911. Meanwhile he had been appointed as Visitor-General to the English Province. In 1914 he became a mitred abbot with the titular abbacy of Leicester and in 1946 he became Abbot-General of the Order of Rome where he remained until 1951. Outside his other official duties Abbot Smith devoted much time to pastoral work in parishes in England attached to the Order. He celebrated his abbatial silver jubilee in 1939 at St. Peter in Chains Church, Stroud Green, London, where the celebrations included a mystery tour organized by the parishioners. He found it meant a day at the seaside with the children of the parish.
He continued actively at Bodmin and in visiting parishes until a few years before his death, maintaining his interest in the work of the Order and particularly in the building of the abbey church at Bodmin which he saw sufficiently near to completion to look forward to pontificating at the first Mass.

Footnote: The forename Aloysius seems to have been adopted at the time he was ordained a priest. The name comes from Aloysius Gonzaga, an Italian Jesuit, born on 9 March 1568 who was made a Saint following his death on 21 June 1591.