Bruno De Splenter

Bruno De Splenter, son of Joannes De Splenter, farm labourer, and Amelia Coopman, earned his teaching degree at the teacher training college in Torhout and was appointed teacher for the English students at the minor seminary until 1857. In the meantime he was studying Latin and also took the retorica classes (1858) and philosophy classes (1859). He enrolled in the English Seminary and was ordained priest on 18.12.1862. In 1863 he finished his Phd in Rome and received his doctoral degree in canon law. He started teaching classical and modern languages at the Salford Catholic Grammar School in 1863. He was appointed pastor-dean at St. Edmund’s, Manchester in 1877. In 1891 he joined the Manchester School Board for which he fulfilled a significant role in advancing catholic education. He became the dean and canon at St. Patrick’s in Manchester in the same year. He was a proponent of the rights of the Irish people. He wrote articles for e.g. ‘t Jaer 30 (The Year 30), the Gazette van Thielt and Biekorf (Beehive).