Born in the diocese of Cashel, Ireland, 6 December 1825
Took the habit in Maryvale on 7 September 1849
Final Oblation in Sicklinghall 1 November 1853 (No. 359)
Left the Congregation in August 1874.
John Bushell was born in the diocese of Cashel on 6 December 1825. He began his novitiate on 7 September 1849 at Maryvale, with Father Charles Bellon as master of novices and pronounced his first vows on 8 September 1850. In the minutes of General Council 4 September 1850 we read: “Brother Bushel of the house of Manchester ends his novitiate on 7 September; good worker, excellent religious, humble, docile, pious, admitted for one year.” According to Denny he was sent by Father Aubert with Fathers Daly, Grey, Walsh, and Noble to open the Manchester mission. This was in 1849. It seems he was immediately sent from there to Holycross, Liverpool, as a cook. Already on 1 January 1850 Father Bellon wrote to Father Provincial that he could take him for that house. He made his final oblation in Lys Marie, Sicklinghall, 1 November 1853. The Sicklinghall codex records him coming from Liverpool for the annual retreat in the years 1853-1855. We find him in Sicklinghall in 1858: in a letter to Bishop de Mazenod dated 22 December 1858 Father Prosper Boisramé wrote that he “is 12 years professed, I think. You know his record. He tries the patience of our novices with his brusqueness and asperity […] I console him, encourage him to continue overcoming his temperament, which is really difficult […] He is cook, for want of another Brother he bakes, he is very useful from a material point of view.”
On 19 April 1859 he passes through Inchicore on his way to serve in Glencree as cook and is listed on the Glencree staff in the 1862 personnel. He was in Liverpool in 1862-1863. In the 1871 personnel he is placed in the House of Retreat Inchicore, and in an 1873 list in Belmont House. His name does not appear in Missions OMI and is rarely found in the Oblate sources. In the minutes of the General Council meeting of 28 June 1869 we learn that Father Thomas Horace Pinet, provincial, is asking for a dispensation from vows for Brother Bushel, who is in final vows, and that Father Charles Jolivet will see that it is not possible to keep him. On a page enumerating the Inchicore personnel in 1871 we read: “Bushel, John, left.” According to the personnel register in the general secretariat Brother Bushel was expelled from the congregation in August 1874.
Yvon Beaudoin
and Michael Hughes, o.m.i.
