Br. Clair Stanislaus

William John Battersby was born on September 25, 1904, at Portsmouth, England, and entered the Juniorate and Novitiate at Dover, where he received the habit and religious name of Brother Clair Stanislaus on December 7, 1920. In addition to honors degrees in English (B.A., 1929), Economics (B.S.C., 1934), and History (B.A., 1942), he received his doctorate in history from the University of London in 1949. His tour of duty includes: St. Joseph's College, London, 1922-1934 & 1946-1948 & 1955-1964; St. John's College, Portsmouth, 1934-1946, 1964-1965; Mother House in Rome, 1948-1954. While president of the Catholic Teachers of London in 1959 he was instrumental in the government grant to Catholic schools being raised from fifty percent to seventy-five percent. In 1965 Brother Clair came to the United States and after two years at Manhattan College he joined the faculty of Christian Brothers College in Memphis. He retired there from active teaching in 1975. He wrote twenty-two books about De La Salle, the Institute, and individual Brothers. In addition, he wrote frequently for periodi­cals, at least thirty-four different articles, as well as giving lectures in Malta, Spain, England, Ireland, and the United States. He died at age seventy-two, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for fifty-six years.