Hull, Ernest Reginald
HULL, ERNEST REGINALD
Author, editor, pioneer of the Catholic press in India;b. Sept. 9, 1863, Greenhays, Manchester, England; d. July 19, 1952, Roehampton, England. Converted from Aglicanism in 1882, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1886 and was engaged in literary work when a request came from India for an English Jesuit to edit the Bombay Catholic Examiner, a 53–year–old diocesan paper. He arrived in Bombay in 1902, and remained there until 1932, occupying the position of editor from Jan. 1, 1903 to Nov. 29, 1924. During his editorship, the papers rose from its former status of "a derelict" to become an important organ in the apostolate.
An index of Hull's writing from 1903 to 1930 contains 15,000 titles. Reprints of series originally written for the paper total 56, and cover character building, morals, culture, religion, science doctrine, controversy, and history (both English and Indian, ecclesiastical and secular). From 1924 to 1932 he was archivist and secretary to the archbishop of Bombay. On his return to England, he was editor of Stella Maris (1934–35), and wrote for various journals. Of his many book, the most influential was Man's Great Concern: The Management of Life (1918), which was adopted as a textbook in schools; translated into Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Chinese; and ran into several editions.
[h. rozario]