| born 20 June 1906 in Glasgow |
| died 15 April 1970 aged 63 |
| clothed 14 January 1923 |
| professed 1924 |
| Solemn profession 10 February 1927 |
Born to Francis and Sarah (née Maguire)
In 1924-27 Brother Hugh was sent to help found Washington. He then became printer and produced EBC Ordo until 1968. He was also a skilled photographer.
He took perpetual (rather than Solemn) vows, ‘In the presence of the VR Adrian Weld-Blundell of the Priory of St Anselm at Washington and the monks of the same monastery’.
Brother Hugh (together with Brother Patrick) looked after the Abbey Press.
“It was in the early part of 1957 that Brother Hugh, who had printed The Corbie for more than twenty-five years, had given up the unequal struggle with ‘imperfect copy, editorial shortcomings and difficulties of understaffing and restrictions’. The Corbie was now no longer printed at the Abbey Press.”
“Brother Hugh Shields died on 15 April after a long illness. He had come to Fort Augustus in 1921 and was one of the founder members of St Anselm’s Abbey in Washington DC. He will be remembered principally as a printer and photographer; his wide knowledge and long experience running the Press at Fort Augustus brought him into contact with the printing trade throughout the UK. He was a man of prayer and a friendly figure.”
From the book Abbey Boys by Mike Turnbull
The founding community of St. Anselm Priory, Washington, D.C., in 1924.
Bottom row, left to right: Br. Hugh Shields, Br. Bernard Sole, Prior Wulstan Knowles, Abbot Joseph McDonald, Fr. Benedict Brosnahan, Br. Bede O’Donnel, Br. Vincent Steiger.
Top row: Fr. Thomas Verner Moore, Fr. Albert Haldi, Fr. Hugh Diman, Br. Brendan O’Conner, Fr. Augustine Walsh
Brother Hugh’s headstone in the monk’s cemetery
