Gasson, Thomas Ignatius, 1859-1930

Thomas Ignatius Gasson was born on September 23, 1859 in Sevenoaks, Kent, England, to parents of French Heugenot and English ancestry. Gasson was educated at St Stephen's School in London, England. In 1872, following the death of his mother and his father’s subsequent remarriage, Gasson left England planning to join his elder brother in the United States. Failing to settle with his brother, Gasson attempted to support himself in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. Two Irish women, Catherine Doyle and Anne McGarvey, befriended the young Englishman, and arranged for the Sisters of the Convent of the Sacred Heart to provide him with board and instruct him in the Catholic faith. He was baptized on October 5, 1874 at the Chapel of the Holy Family, now the Church of the Gesu in Philadelphia.

In November 1875, he entered the Jesuit order at Frederick, Maryland, and began his studies at the Woodstock College seminary. He taught at Loyola College in Baltimore and St. Francis Xavier College in New York while preparing for ordination. For his theological studies, he was sent to the University of Innsbruck in Austria, where he was ordained on July 26, 1891. In 1892, Gasson returned to the United States to take a teaching post, possibly at Mount St. Mary’s University in Frederick County, Maryland. In 1895, he was assigned to the faculty of Boston College where he taught ethics, economics, and the junior classes. On January 6, 1907 he was appointed the thirteenth president of Boston College.

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