Monsignor William Dalton

  Obituary of Monsignor William Dalton Former Rector of St Joseph's College, Upholland, and long serving Parish Priest of St Thomas of Canterbury, St Helens

 Monsignor William Dalton died on Saturday 25 November aged 92 and in the 69th year of his priesthood. He was well known to several generations of seminarians from the Northern Province and beyond in his capacity as professor of dogmatic theology, and later Rector, at Upholland. 

His period of teaching included the days of the Second Vatican Council and the many changes that followed in the early post-conciliar period.

Later as Rector in the mid-1970s he had to oversee the changes at Upholland following the bishops' decision to alter the seminary provision for the Northern Province. William Dalton was born in Warrington on 30 October 1925, the son of William and Mary Dalton. 

He was the youngest of four children and was educated at Sacred Heart School, Warrington, before he entered the junior seminary at the English College, Lisbon.

He remained at Lisbon for the duration of the Second World War and then transferred to St Joseph's College, Upholland, for the final three years of his theology course. At the general ordinations held at Upholland on 11 June 1949, he was the only priest ordained by Bishop Joseph Halsall, Auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool. 

The next day he celebrated his first Mass at Sacred Heart Church, Warrington. Following ordination, he studied dogmatic theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium before returning to Upholland College in 1953 to embark on a nearly thirty years' continuous service on the college staff. 

From 1953 to 1973 he served as a theology professor, apart from 1955-1956 when he went to teach undergraduates at Notre Dame University, Indiana, USA. In 1973, following the sudden death of Monsignor Tom Worden, he was appointed Rector of Upholland College and was named as a Prelate of Honour by Pope Paul VI the following year.

In February 1977 he was appointed by Archbishop Derek Worlock as Episcopal Vicar for Education, a post he combined with his duties as Rector. Monsignor Dalton finally got his wish to exercise his priestly ministry in a parish in January 1982 with his appointment to the parish of St Thomas of Canterbury in St Helens where he was a much-loved parish priest and it was there that he celebrated his Golden Jubilee in 1999. 

Following his retirement in 2004, firstly at Aughton and then at Maghull, he often supplied for priests in their parishes when he was able and was an unfailingly cheerful presence at diocesan gatherings. His Funeral Mass was celebrated at St Thomas of Canterbury, St Helens, on Monday 4 December prior to burial in St Helens Cemetery.