Alban Goodier (1869-1939)

  Alban Goodier, Jesuit and Roman Catholic archbishop of Bombay, was born in Great Harwood on April 14 th , 1869, the second of five surviving children of William Goodier, a biscuit manufacturer, and his wife, Elizabeth Kitching. Goodier went to primary schools in Great Harwood and Preston. He attended Stonyhurst College between 1882 and 1887, and later taught there for six years. He was ordained a priest in 1903.

Goodier was the principal of St Xavier's University College, Bombay, from 1915 to 1919 and was Archbishop of Bombay from 1920 to 1925. “Dr Goodier's Charities” raised funds to help the poor and to build schools, hospitals and hostels for girls and young men. An obituary in The Times described him as “a man of deep and unostentatious piety with a real friendliness of character, but somewhat sensitive.”

His books include The Public Life of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 vols., 1930) and The Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ (1933).