| Admin_History | John Robert Fagan was born 20 July 1860 in Salford, Lancashire. He was educated at Salford Grammar School. Fagan entered the Society of Jesus on 20 June 1880, joining the novitiate at Roehampton. He completed part of his novitiate in Aberdovey in France before studying philosophy at Dunbrody, a house of formation in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Fagan completed his regency by teaching at St Aidan's College in Grahamstown. He also spent some time in 1888 teaching rhetoric at the Graaf Reinet mission.
Fr Fagan returned to Europe to complete his formation. He studied theology at Enghein. He was ordained as priest on 20 August 1891 and complete a tertianship at Tronciennes. Fr Fagan was translated to the English Province in 1893 when control of the Zambesi Mission was assumed by the English Province. In 1894, Fr Fagan worked at the parish of St David's in Dalkeith. It is thought that Fr Fagan may have briefly served at Chishawasha in the Zambesi Mission [Zimbabwe] in 1895 before returning to England.
He left the Society of Jesus on 5 October 1895.
As a secular priest Fr Fagan worked at a parish in Poplar, East London, before moving to Australia in or around 1896. In Australia, Fr Fagan served parishes variously at Coraki, Ballina, Winton and Cowper, and as chaplain of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Brisbane.
Fr Fagan died in October 1951 and is buried in a Jesuit plot at Nudgee Catholic Cemetery in Brisbane. |