St Thomas of Canterbury Parish, Billingham

General information

History of our Parish

By the time of James I (ascended the throne 1603) the Catholic faith in Billingham had departed. The chapel at Low Grange belonging to the Prior at Durham was in ruins and eventually became forgotten as it was obscured by the farm buildings of which it made part.

In 1767 it is reported that about two dozen Catholic families lived in the whole area of Billingham, Norton and Grindon.

Two events changed all this- first the establishment of ironworks along the banks of the Tees due to the discovery of iron ore in the Cleveland Hills, and second, the steady supply of labour made available by the effects of the famine disaster in Ireland.

Roman Catholic parishes were set up in Middlesbrough about 1840 and in Port Clarence in 1865.

It was the 20thC which saw the Mass return to Billingham. Those who flocked to find work at the “Synthetic” found their “church” was the rented Memorial Hall in Southview served from the adjoining existing parishes. For Benediction they walked or took the tram to Norton.

Fr Eric Connell was the first post-Reformation priest in the village in 1931 saying Mass in his home at 80 Station Rd until the presbytery and school were built in 1933. The school hall served for Mass until the church was built in 1959.

As the village became a thriving town, new housing was built north of the railway. Mass was said in The Swan Hotel on the old A19 before 1947. A new parish, Holy Rosary, was set up in 1949. The first priest, Fr Eoghan Brady, came on 13th Nov 1949 with a birthday present of £500 to set up a temporary church in an army hut situated on the corner of Buxton Gardens and Grosvenor Road. It was blessed 14thMay 1950. He purchased Greenholm, on Wolviston Road, as a temporary presbytery.

The original site for Holy Rosary church was to be near the present Whitehead park but negotiations achieved the present site. Fr Brady died 15th October 1957 and Fr Marron saw to the completion of the church building. Fr Deegan had arrived as the 2nd parish priest on 29th Nov 1959. The church was opened 1960, followed by the school in 1961. The former presbytery had served as a school but on the completion of the new school it became “Billingham Catholic Club”.

Further growth meant a another division and the next parish of St Joseph was formed in 1961 with the area east of Marsh House Avenue . When the first parish priest Fr Arrowsmith died Fr Head moved there from Holy Rosary in 1976. Fr Keoghan arrived to be parish priest at Holy Rosary and remained as such until 1994.

In 1978 St Joseph’s church was opened by Bishop Swindlehurst and St Thomas’ church in Port Clarence was closed down.

Fr Kerwick succeeded Fr Connell at St John’s and he by Fr Tom McCormack and eventually by Fr David Taylor. When Fr Head died in 1990 he was replaced by Fr Nicholson who retired when Fr Kevin Dixon became PP. Fr Taylor left to go to St Peter’s Gateshead 2003 and Fr Dixon to Sunderland in 2004. Our town continues to grow with the expansion of the Wynyard housing and of course the Catholic community includes part of Hartlepool Borough, via. Newton Bewley. The three parishes, although not canonically amalgamated, continued to work very much as one.

Permission to amalgamate was sought during the course of 2010.

In early 2011 Bishop Seamus Cunningham issued a decree which suppressed our three parishes and erected one new one under the title of St Thomas of Canterbury, thus the circle was complete going back to the patron saint of the mother parish in Port Clarence.

In December 2013 the parish erected the new Pastoral Parish Council (minutes can be found on the Pastoral Parish Council page at the top of this page) with Mr B Scott elected the chair.