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St Augustine of Canterbury (early 6thCentury – sometime around May 26, 604AD) was a monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597AD. He is considered the founder of the established English Catholic Church. This is one of a cluster of streets that remembers the Lords of Harrow Manor Rectory alias Harrow-on-the-Hill, which came to the church in the 9thCentury via a priest named Werhardt. From 1094 Harrow Rectory was a peculiar of the archbishopric of Canterbury, with the rector having sole manorial jurisdiction over Harrow-on-the-Hill and Roxborough, allowing him to collect tithes over a large area. This was a prized position which attracted ambitious and important men, and the rectory house was accordingly fine and spacious. The archbishops of Canterbury lost much of this prized possession on December 30, 1545 when Henry VIII forced the then incumbent, Thomas Cranmer, to sell the property to him. Six days later, the king sold it to Sir Edward (later Lord) North, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations and a court favourite. It remained in his family’s ownership until 1630. Following Rome’s withdrawal from Britain in 410AD, the country, which had been adopting Catholicism, lapsed into Paganism as Saxons invaded and settled. In 595AD Pope Gregory the Great chose Augustine, the prior of a monastery in Rome, to lead a mission to Britain to convert King Æthelberht and his Kingdom of Kent from Anglo-Saxon paganism. Kent was probably chosen because Æthelberht had married a Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert I the King of Paris, who was expected to exert some influence over her husband. Before reaching Kent, the missionaries had considered turning back, but Gregory urged them on, and in 597AD, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet and proceeded to Æthelberht’s main town of Canterbury. There he converted the king to Christianity who then allowed the missionaries to preach freely, giving them land to found a monastery outside the city walls. Augustine was consecrated as a bishop and converted many of the king’s subjects, including thousands during a mass baptism on Christmas Day later that year. Pope Gregory sent more missionaries in 601AD, along with encouraging letters and gifts for the churches, although attempts to persuade the native British bishops – who had retained the faith from Roman times – to submit to Augustine’s authority failed. Roman bishops were established at London, and Rochester in 604AD, and a school was founded to train Anglo-Saxon priests and missionaries. Augustine also arranged the consecration of his successor, Laurence of Canterbury.
