A MUCH-loved monk from Ampleforth with 50 years’ service has died.

Fr Francis Dobson, aged 78, died peacefully in the monastery infirmary on Tuesday, January 9.

Born in Newark, Fr Francis was educated at Ampleforth and worked in his family’s textile business before qualifying as an accountant.

He subsequently worked for Price Waterhouse (now PwC) before embarking on a monastic life at 28.

Following further study at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, he returned to Ampleforth for a teaching career that would last more than 30 years.

In 1979, he began co-ordinating the college’s annual pilgrimage to Lourdes in France, making more than 80 pilgrimages there himself, as well as 20 to Madjugorje in Bosnia.

In 1989, he was made a titular member of the Hospitalité de Notre Dame de Lourdes and in 2009, was appointed as an honorary chaplain of the Lourdes Grotto.

As well as being chaplain of two of the college’s boarding houses, he worked on the Ampleforth Journal and the Ampleforth Diary, was honorary secretary of the college society, and encouraged students to help those in need abroad.

Fr Francis was diagnosed with prostate cancer in June 2016.

His body will be received into the Abbey Church at 6pm on January 15, and his funeral mass will be at midday on January 16, followed by a burial in Monks’ Wood.