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Faithful Shepherd of the Falklands

Monsignor Daniel Spraggon, Apostolic Prefect in Stanley

■ Posted to my Substack: 3 April 2025

The anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands is a time to recall one of the archipelago’s most faithful shepherds: Monsignor Daniel Spraggon, the apostolic prefect of the Falklands, South Georgia, and South Sandwich Islands.

Born in Newcastle in 1912, Daniel’s parents died during his childhood, leaving him to be raised by Daniel and Kitty Anderson who taught him the skills of the butcher’s trade. At the age of 22, Daniel joined the Mill Hill Missionaries and studied throughout the Second World War, finally being ordained on the feast of Sts Peter & Paul in 1945.

The Mill Hill Fathers assigned him to Buea in the British Cameroons (today a component of the Anglophone part of Cameroun) where, in addition to caring for souls, he also raised pigs. Having impressed the local colonial officials, they successfully requested the Mill Hill Fathers assign Spraggon as a military chaplain to the Gold Coast Regiment of the Royal West African Field Force.

When the Gold Coast became the first of Britain’s West African colonies to achieve independence in 1957, Spraggon was retired with the rank of Major and honoured with an MBE. He maintained close and friendly contacts with several Ghanaian Army officers — “good men” in his words — some of whom were later involved in the overthrow of Ghana’s chaotic dictator Kwame Nkrumah in 1966.

To the South Atlantic

After years attending to mission appeals in Great Britain and North America, Father Spraggon was appointed to the Falklands in 1971 with the right of succession to the apostolic prefect Msgr James Ireland, who stood down in 1973. While still only a priest, Msgr Spraggon had all the authority of an ordinary bishop over the Falklands, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, and the British Antarctic Territory.

Spraggon took to his task with vigour, encouraging the farmers to allow their children and farm workers to be educated, particularly when it came to matters of religion. As the Dictionary of Falklands Biography notes:

“Hospital visiting was a daily event even on a Sunday — not only were Catholic families visited but those of other denominations. This also held good on the ecumenical side. Many joint services were conducted in a warm and friendly spirit, though when he had to be firm he was.”

Pigs had been his department in Africa, but in the Falklands Msgr Spraggon turned instead to cattle. As the DFB relates:

“His cutting up of a quarter or half was a joy to behold — and his handling of the carcass showed a robust frame but belied a none too healthy body which he managed to hide so well. Sausages, brawn and soups were also his forte.”

The Argentine airline LADE began regular flights to Port Stanley in 1972, which brought Msgr Spraggon into contact with their officers and staff, by numbers overwhelmingly Catholic in religion.

In conversation, the Monsignor very frankly relayed to the LADE officials that the Islands were British, the Islanders were British, and that they would do everything in their power to remain British while also hoping to be as friendly as possible to their Argentine neighbours.

Invasion

The quiet pastoral life of the Falklands was rudely interrupted on 2 April 1982 when an overwhelming Argentine force invaded and seized the British territory.

The Argentine forces took the capital Port Stanley where the governor of the Falklands, Rex Masterman Hunt CMG, ordered them to depart the islands immediately and return to Argentina. The next day it was announced the invading occupiers were going to remove the Governor from the Falklands, flying him to Argentina where he could then return to London.

Hunt decided to don his full civil uniform — feathery cap and all — and march down the street to reassure islanders that Britain would be back. Spraggon, long since become a good friend to the administrator, ran up to take hold of him to bid farewell — for now.

“The Islanders will need you now more than ever, Monsignor,” Hunt told him. “I know you’ll do your best from them.” Spraggon embraced the Governor: “And I know you’ll be back.”

Sir Rex wrote later in his memoirs that Spraggon “universally liked and respected… was to prove a tower of strength during the occupation”.

Seeing Hunt in his full uniform, the cleric determined there and then that he would wear his full monsignor’s kit for the duration of the occupation — however long it lasted — to keep the Islanders hopes alive.

As prefect apostolic, Msgr Spraggon was not just a clergyman but the representative of the Holy See — a sovereign state in international law — on the Islands.

In his first interaction with the Argentine commanders, Msgr Spraggon echoed the Governor’s advice that they should leave the Falklands immediately, otherwise everyone “even the penguins” would depart.

As it happened, the Monsignor did everything in his power to make sure the Falklanders stayed put and were looked after. He crisscrossed the islands calling in on farmers and families, talking to islanders and calming them with his reassuring presence — again, in his full garb as prelate.

Dealing with the “Argies”

The Argentine military-civilian liaison officer on the island was a Commodore Carlos Bloomer-Reeve — an acquaintance of the Monsignor’s from the Argentine’s previous role with LADE airlines — assisted by Argentine naval captain (later vice admiral) Barry Melbourne Hussey. Spraggon and Bloomer-Reeve’s pre-existing relationship proved useful across the Argentine occupation as the Monsignor often had to advocate on behalf of individual islanders.

The only policeman on the island, PC Anton Livermore, initially tried to make do after the invasion in helping keep some civil order and preventing harm. Major Dowling of the Argentine Army was made the head of civil policing but when Dowling ordered Livermore to arrest a civilian, the constable refused. “They didn’t like that and threatened me, but Monsignor Spraggon sorted that out,” Livermore said. “I have a lot to thank Monsignor for.”

The invading forces were an odd lot. Most — not all — the Argentine officers had a decent reputation for gentlemanly conduct with the Islanders but they often showed an utter contempt for their own enlisted men. In contrast to the well-fed officers, the drafted Argentine enlistees were poorly nourished and sometimes begged or stole food from islanders.

“After the curfew they shot at anything that moved,” Spraggon reported. “They didn’t know one end of the gun from the other.” One evening a nervous conscript opened fire on the Monsignor’s house. Spraggon marched down to Comodoro Bloomer-Reeves’ office first thing the next morning and forced him to come and count the twenty-seven bullet holes in the priest’s house.

Two bullets had breached the lavatory at a potentially lethal angle. “Look at that!” he shouted at the Argentine with his thick Geordie accent. “If I’d been answering the call of nature, you’d now be answering to God!” Years later Spraggon showed Rex Hunt his thick copy of Moral and Pastoral Theology (Volume V) which a bullet had torn through: “They got through it quicker than I did!”

Throughout the occupation, the Monsignor never lost his confidence in an eventual British victory. He sensed that — once the British naval task force had been assembled — the Argentines on the island also suspected they would lose.

Mass continued to be offered in the Catholic church to mixed congregations of Islanders and occupiers. The Sunday following the Queen’s Birthday included a particularly lusty rendition of God Save the Queen, to the sheepish embarrassment of the Argentines.

Liberation and Life

When it came, the day of liberation was a source of great joy. The Islands’ old governor — and the Monsignor’s good friend — Sir Rex Hunt was flown back in triumph.

In his memoirs he recalls returning to Stanley:

“The two victorious commanders, Sandy Woodward and Jeremy Moore, welcomed me back but, before I could take the General Salute, I was engulfed by the crowd. Normally not renowned for displaying emotions, even the miserable weather couldn’t dampen their spirits. In that sea of faces I saw Syd and Betty Miller, crying this time from joy, not sorrow, and Monsignor Spraggon, in all his finery still and beaming goodwill and happiness.”

The Governor and the Prelate — Rex and Daniel — both stayed on in their roles following the liberation. There were many dead bodies scattered across the islands to deal with, and the Argentine government at that time refused to repatriate their own war dead.

The Falklands authorities decided to dedicate a plot of land for the enemy dead, consecrated by Monsignor Spraggon — saddened that so many lives had been lost so uselessly. “We looked after the poor buggers a lot better dead than their officers did alive,” he said.

For his efforts during the occupation, Monsignor Spraggon was awarded an OBE which he travelled to Buckingham Palace to receive in 1983.

The priest was no longer young, and the bad luck of an aneurysm saw him detained in the Islands’ King Edward Memorial Hospital on the fateful evening in April 1984 that a serious fire erupted.

With such a small population, in Stanley a fire is a matter of all-hands-on-deck — even the Governor. Again Sir Rex Hunt’s memoirs relay the scene:

When I got back to the west entrance, someone said that all the patients were out of the hospital and safely accounted for, but over in the nurses’ block they told me that this was not so – Monsignor was still inside, and Teresa and her baby, and perhaps others.

I dashed back to the west entrance and tried to make my way through the smoke to Monsignor’s room, but after a few yards I was coughing and spluttering and realised that, without breathing apparatus, it was hopeless. I returned to the door and waited anxiously, feeling utterly frustrated and helpless.

Suddenly figures emerged from the smoke wearing breathing apparatus and carrying a body. ‘It’s Barbara Chick’, said one, in a voice which I recognised as Marvin’s. ‘She’s dead, but there are more in there.’ They put her down in the entrance and went back into the smoke.

I tried to lift her, but she was too heavy for me. Helping hands appeared and we managed to lay her to one side of the main entrance. Apart from a blackened face, she was unharmed and indeed looked quite serene.

Out of the gloom for the second time loomed three figures, carrying another body. ‘It’s the Monsignor’, said Marvin, ‘He’s still alive.’ Four of us took him from the firemen and, as we did so, he groaned. It was music to my ears.

As we carried him across to the nurses’ quarters, his pyjama trousers slipped and I found myself holding him by one leg and a bare bottom. Alison was in the nurses’ quarters and quickly put him on oxygen. His face was absolutely black, but he was breathing.

As the life-giving oxygen filled his lungs, his eyes opened and he recognised me through the oxygen mask. Kneeling beside him, I said ‘Well, Daniel, I never thought I’d hold a Monsignor by the right buttock!’ His eyes twinkled and I knew that he was going to be all right.

Hunt had feared the Islands would lose their beloved Monsignor, but he was still going strong later that year.

On the evening of Christmas Day 1984, Hunt had Spraggon round for a glass, sitting by the peat fire in the small drawing room of Government House.

They discussed how long they might each continue in post. “I want to stay until you go,” the Prelate told the Governor, “and then I’ll go”.

The End

Spraggon made it to his friend’s final convening of the Executive Council of the colony in September 1985. He promised to see the Governor off before he left the Islands for good, scheduled for some weeks time.

Ten days later, the Governor returned to his office following his normal weekly briefing with HQ British Forces Falkland Islands when Father Monaghan, the Monsignor’s assistant, arrived “so overwrought that he could barely speak”.

Monsignor Spraggon had suffered a burst aorta and died just minutes earlier.

The Governor’s wife took Father Monaghan through to the drawing room while Sir Rex used the new satellite telephone link to ring through to the headquarters of the Mill Hill Fathers in London.

“I got through to the Superior General, Bishop de Wit, immediately,” Hunt wrote. “He promised to tell Daniel’s family and without a moment’s hesitation said that he would come down for the funeral. He caught the first available aircraft and arrived in my office with Daniel’s nephew, Edward Spraggon, six days later.”

On 3 October 1985, the six-foot-seven-inch-tall Dutch bishop presided at the funeral, speaking good English “in a deep resonant voice that seemed to come all the way up from his boots”.

Staying at the bullet-ridden priest’s house and looking out onto the ships in the harbour, the bishop spotted the name of HMS Endurance and chose this as the theme of his funeral oration, reflecting on this characteristic of the Monsignor’s life.

The Governor and the Bishop escorted Sproggan from the church to his final resting place in Stanley’s cemetery, where Sir Rex Hunt bid his friend farewell for the final time.

“For once the wind was not blowing on that bleak hillside,” Hunt reported, “and all was calm and serene.”

☩

Monsignor Daniel Martin Spraggon MHM — requiescat in pace.

In thanksgiving for the lives and struggles of all clerics who have faithfully guided and guarded their flocks in difficult circumstances throughout the centuries.

Published at 2:40 pm on Tuesday 8 April 2025. Categories: Church History.
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