Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Plater, Charles Dominic
PLATER, CHARLES DOMINIC (1875–1921), Catholic divine and social worker, was born at Brook Green, London, 2 September 1875, the third son and youngest child of Edward Angelo Plater, by his wife, Margaret Harting. His paternal grandfather, Charles Edward Plater, was co-founder of Marlborough College; his father, who resigned a War Office clerkship in 1878 in order to devote himself to music, had been received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1851 by John Henry Newman. The Harting family, which had always remained Catholic, was distinguished in historical research and natural science. Hereditary qualities—Christian zeal, sense of scholarship, unconventional geniality, love of music, and especially the brilliancy, controlled emotionalism, and intuition of his maternal grandmother, a Scotswoman—were startlingly visible in Charles Plater. At Stonyhurst, where he was educated from 1887 to 1894, he was precociously clever and an audacious leader; he might have become a journalist, actor, or diplomat. But, sincerely pious, he entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1894 and after four years' classical and philosophical study at Roehampton and Stonyhurst (1896–1900) he went to the Jesuit house of studies, Pope's Hall (afterwards Campion Hall) at Oxford. A second class in classical moderations (1902), and in literae humaniores (1904), rewarded him accurately; but scientific archaeology chastened his imagination, and vacations in Holland, Belgium, and France enriched his sympathies and revealed his vocation—namely to foster and apply Catholic social principles in England and to create a system of spiritual ‘retreats’ for the laity, especially for working-men.
While finishing his philosophy and teaching classics at St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst (1904–1907), Plater displayed much journalistic ardour and became connected with every kind of Catholic social work. During his four years in Wales, at St. Beuno's, St. Asaph, 1907–1911, retreat-houses were opened and the Catholic Social Guild founded. He was ordained in 1910. Between 1912 and 1916 he was teaching psychology at Stonyhurst and classics at Wimbledon College. In the latter year he was appointed rector of the Jesuit hall at Oxford. In 1918 he obtained a university statute making his hall (which was given the name of Campion) into a ‘permanent private hall’ of the university. He also took an energetic share in the social work of the city; visited his own Catholic Social Guild study-circles, especially on Tyneside and in the north, and did creative work in many military centres, labouring not least for colonial and American soldiers. At the same time Plater was conducting a very large number of retreats, and writing constantly on social subjects, his Primer of Peace and War (1915) being his best thought-out book. His personal influence, especially among the working-classes, seemed unlimited, and his remarkable output of work was matched by the affection which he inspired. His health broke down in 1920; after a useless sojourn afloat off the west coast of Ireland, he went to Malta in November of that year and died there suddenly 21 January 1921.
[C. C. Martindale, Life of Charles Dominic Plater, S.J., 1922; diaries; private information; personal knowledge.]