ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER Saints celebrated on the 1st of December WELCOME! SAINT RALPH SHERWIN, PRIEST AND MARTYR [Saint Ralph was an] English martyr, born 1550 at Rodesley, near Longford, Derbyshire; died at Tyburn, December 1, 1581. In 1568 Sir William Petre nominated him to one of the eight fellowships which he had founded at Exeter College, Oxford, probably acting under the influence of the martyr's uncle, John Woodward, who from 1556 to 1566 had been rector of Ingatestone, Essex, where Sir William lived. There Blessed Ralph took the degree of M.A., 2 July, 1574, and was accounted "an acute philosopher, and an excellent Grecian and Hebrician". In 1575 he fled abroad and went to the English College at Douai, where March 23, 1577, he was ordained priest by the Bishop of Cambrai. On August 2, 1577, he left for Rome, where he stayed at the English College nearly three years, becoming leader of the movement, which placed it under the supervision of the ...