Dom Peter Roundhill
OSB Dom Peter Roundhill
OSB Dom Peter died on 29 Dec 1999. Here is the obituary from the Alton Herald, forwarded by Dom Andrew.
George Roundhill was a Methodist, and his wife Lilly was a member of the Evangelical wing of the Church of England; their only child, Stanley, was born on May 6, 1914, in Hull.
When Stanley left school, he took a job as an office boy at the Hull Daily Mail, eventually rising to be the writer of its Special Feature Pages.
Since his teens, however, he had felt sure that God was calling him to the monastic life, and in 1937 he made the journey south to Alton where he joined the community at Beech which was to be the frame of his life and work to the day of his death.
In community, Stanley took the name of Brother Peter. He was ordained priest by the Bishop of Winchester in 1950, and is well remembered in the local parishes, above all in Medstead and Wield, as well as by former patients and staff of the Lord Mayor Treloar Hospital, where he was chaplain for ten years up to his retirement aged 70.
During the sixty-two years of his life as a monk, Peter was proud to gave held every office in the community, with the exception of organist and choir director, for which he recognised wryly that he had no aptitude.
When the community was small in number, Father Peter had to double up on his responsibilities: he remembered six months during his time as Superior when he was also Cook, and Warden of the Seaman's Retirement Home, and officiated in services at Medstead which had no vicar at the time!
Cautious by nature, Peter was always positive in outlook; he strived to support community decisions, and to encourage others to do the same. Peter was elected Prior of Alton Abbey in 1959, at a difficult time in the history of the monastic house. He found the burden of being head of the community to be a great strain, and was pleased to slip easily back into a supporting role after five years as Superior.
The Benedictine Rule indicates that a monk should recognise Christ in every encounter: Peter took great joy in meeting visitors to the Abbey, and especially the young, often keeping in contact not just with that generation, but also with their children and grandchildren.
Another abiding interest was the wild life, both flora and fauna, to be seen in the grounds of the Abbey. He delighted in making small watercolour paintings of wild flowers, which would be presented as birthday and Christmas cards. Painting continued to provide Peter with an outlet for his creativity through the years during which arthritis restricted his mobility.
As a friend of the community wrote on hearing the news of his passing, Father Peter epitomised spiritual strength, wisdom and sound commonsense (tempered with an ability to perceive the ridiculous, accompanied by a twinkle in the eye).
He was also a very private man, who had dreaded the thought of going into hospital to die. As it turned out, God was merciful to his faithful servant: Peter had barely 24 hours of illness before dying in his own room on the afternoon of December 29.
A funeral mass was celebrated in the Abbey at 2pm on Tues Jan 11 2000.