In October 1913, Roman Andres Rios, a 22 year old Spanish monk, arrived in New Norcia from Spain via Italy. He stayed for only eleven years but, by the time he left, he had become the monastery's Prior and, for a couple of years, was a Professor of Scripture at St. Patrick's College, Manly, in New South Wales. Sent as New Norcia's delegate to the 1925 Spanish Provincial Chapter, Rios found himself appointed Prior of El Pueyo in Spain where he stayed until his term expired in 1936. He then went to the monastery of Ramsgate in England, becoming Abbot Visitor of the English Province of the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observation in 1948. He died in Ramsgate in 1955. While at New Norcia, he wrote a history of the monastery which, until now, has existed only as a typescript. It is an important work, for it follows on earlier historical works by Bishop Salvado, Theophile Berengier and James Flood and brings the historical narrative through the reign of Abbot Torres (1901 - 1914) into Abbot Catlan's time. In 1943, Rios' typescript was improved in respect to English expression by a monk of the monastery, Fr William. This edition incorporates Fr William's improvements and expands significantly on the footnotes, bibliographical references and classical and biblical allusions. It also includes a biography of Fr Roman, written by Abbot Adrian Taylor of Ramsgate following Fr Rios' death, and is reproduced here with their permission. Peter Hocking is the Archivist of New Norcia, a position he has held since December 2007. Although a professional archivist, Peter originally trained as a classicist at the University of Western Australia and at University College London, then as a librarian at the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University) in 1982, and as an archivist during the 1990s. He has worked as the founding registrar of collections for an American art foundation in Perth, as head of library and information management services for a Swedish adult education organization, as a rare books cataloguer for Cambridge University and as a former lecturer in Librarianship, and in Archival Practice at Curtin University. Peter has edited other books for New Norcia in the Abbey Press series.
