Francis Waddelove

Who was Francis Waddelove?

Brother Francis Waddelove, S.J. was a British Jesuit priest, long-based in Zimbabwe.

Born in 1915 in England, Francis Waddelove joined the Society of Jesus in 1935 and was assigned to Zimbabwe in 1937. He learned to speak the language of the people, Shona.

Brother Francis worked at Driefontein, Monte Cassino, St Michael's Mhondoro, Chishawasha and other rural missions. He was a farmer, but also built many churches. He set up savings clubs for the rural people to make them self-reliant while residing at Campion House, next to the Cathedral in Harare, then known as Salisbury.

He spent his last years at Richartz House, Mt. Pleasant, a home for elderly Jesuit priests, where he died, aged 92, following a fall in which he his broke his leg. He was not strong enough for an operation. He was the oldest Jesuit in Zimbabwe and the last of the pre-World War II generation of priests.

The Jesuit Provincial, Fidelis Mukonori, officiated at Waddelove's Requiem Mass on Wednesday, 11 July 2007; Waddelove was buried in Chishawasha Cemetery.