During the fall term, the school library was used for Parents' Weekend lectures. At one Father Damian gave a talk on the Benedictine Tradition, with its beginnings in Europe and then its development at Portsmouth. During that time a display on the walls and in the display case held artifacts of the school's history. As part of his talk, he mentioned the numerous monks that have been have had special talents. Among them was Dom Wilfrid, and at the time there was a small display of his shields on the shelves and table, entitled "Arms of the Benedictine Monasteries".
Many years ago Dom Wilfrid Bayne was approached by Maurice Lavanoux of Liturgical Arts Magazine, suggesting that he take up ecclesiastical heraldry professionally. The intent was that Father Wilfrid Bayne might fill the gap in ecclesiastical art caused by the death of the late Pierre La Rose, the truly gifted authority and designer of American Church heraldic art. La Rose had designed the monastery and school coat of arms, as well as Portsmouth Abbey's official seal. Father Wilfrid, after working for many years at this new challenge, added greatly to American ecclesiastical and lay heraldry; he then became an authority on armorial painting and antiquarian knowledge in his own right.
"Billy, as he was known then, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1893. He had no interest in law as a career, as his ancestors had, so it was determined he should be trained as an architect. After Dixon's Military Academy in Louisiana, he was sent to the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn. William had his own ideas about all these plans for his future. He wanted to be an artist, so, after one year at Alabama Polytechnic he enrolled in the famed Art Students' League in New York City, where he studied drawing and composition. He also became interested in the Russian ballet. He danced with Pavlova as the first American male to appear with her company. Illness halted this career and as America entered First World War, he volunteered for service in the Navy's hospital corps. At the end of the war, working as an assistant to Augustus Vincent Tack, a talented mural designer, William developed further his feeling for composition and heightened his understanding of the pageantry and drama inherent in the mural art form.
Raised an Episcopalian, Bayne shortly after the close of the war was received into the Roman Catholic Church. In 1923 he applied for admission into the English Benedictine Congregation at Portsmouth, Rhode Island. He was sent to Downside Abbey in England, but because of poor health was rejected. In 1930 he tried again, this time at the Abbey of Fort Augustus in Scotland, and was professed in 1931.
Returning to America, he took up residence at the Priory of St. Gregory the Great, where he remained. He was ordained into the priesthood in 1937, and taught Latin, Greek and History in the Priory School.
For better than thirty years Father Wilfrid made a serious study of heraldry, of its antiquarian and historical aspects, as well as of its art forms. Being from an old Southern, Colonial, family, he began to delve into genealogy and heraldry for his own satisfaction. His art training enabled him to draw the coats of arms of those families His professional standards as an historian compelled him to search out justification and proofs for the arms claimed by families in which he was interested. His draftsmanship and composition have given to the arms he has devised and painted with an authority which other American "heraldists", other herald painters, fail to achieve.
In 1941 the editor of Liturgical Arts asked him, as we have mentioned, to take on some professional assignments. Since then Father Wilfrid has designed arms for cardinals, bishops, abbots and priests, for dioceses and parishes, as well as for monasteries, schools, associations and other Church institutions. He has painted arms, most generously, for friends, and has accepted commissions from others for paintings of personal arms. He has devised badges and insignia for lay organizations and was commissioned to do the armorial artwork in connection with the making of a reproduction of the Newport (Rhode Island} Artillery Company flag of 1775.
Father Wilfrid's contributed articles of both historical and antiquarian interest to American publications including The Augustan Society Information Bulletin, (illustrated with drawings of arms), the article on ecclesiastical heraldry for the New Catholic Encyclopedia, contributions to Liturgical Arts, including "Heraldry in the
Catholic Church," articles in The Benedictine Review and The Coat of Arms, a (quarterly) published by The Heraldry Society of England.
A monograph (the first in a series) of The American Society of Heraldry sought to preserve for posterity the arms devised and painted by Father Wilfrid. The book includes his work for members of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, as well as for a few personages abroad, and for Church institutions and establishment, personal arms of a number of American families and drawings of badges and insignia designed by him for lay organizations. His collection of books are now part of the monastery and school library holdings. He designed the crest of The American Society of Heraldry.
Pictured are the arms on display. On the left is shown the arms of St. Louis (Missouri) and Douai (Woolhampton, England) Abbeys and on the right is shown the arms of Ealing (London) and Saint Anselm (Washington, D.C.). In the center is the personal coat of arms of Bishop Ansgar of Portsmouth Abbey that is executed in exquisite embroidery.
Tables along the windows held the shields of Saint Benedict's Abbey, Fort Augustus (Inverness-shire, Scotland) on the left and Ampleforth (Yorkshire, England). The library table at the beginning of this article is shown holding the open catalog of the work of Father Wilfrid who died in 1974.
