Basil Hume OSB, OM (1923-1999) was Archbishop of Westminster from 1976 to 1999.
He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne to Sir William Errington Hume and Marie Elizabeth Tisseyre.
He joined the Benedictine monastery at Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire at the age of 18. He took the name Basil when he made his final vows as a monk in 1945. He was ordained priest on July 23, 1950. On February 9, 1976, Pope Paul VI appointed him as Archbishop of Westminster, the highest ranking Catholic priest in England and Wales, and later that year, Cardinal. He was the first monk to be made Archbishop since 1850 when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was restored in England and Wales.
