In August, 1848, Brother Walworth was ordained priest, and it was decided that he and Brother Hecker, together with two young Belgian priests, Fathers Teunis and Lefevre, should proceed to England, the Redemptorists having been recently introduced there.  As the cassock is not worn in the streets in England they were sent from Wittem to Liege and there equipped with clerical suits, the tailor being cautioned not to be too ecclesiastical in the cut of the garments.  He produced a ridiculous compromise between a fashionable frock-coat and a cassock, the waist being high and tight and the tails full and flowing, and flopping about the young clerics’ heels.  As they journeyed from Liege to Amsterdam, and thence to London, people stopped and stared at them in their stylish array, and some laughed at them.  In this instance Brother Hecker’s chagrin was not overcome by his sense of the ludicrous, for he was naturally very sensitive of personal unbecomingness, and although not precisely a martinet for clerical exactness, he had strict notions of propriety.

The new Redemptorist foundation was at Clapham, three miles south of London Bridge.  The house was a large, old-fashioned mansion and had been owned by Lord Teignmouth, a notorious anti-Catholic bigot.  Some of the larger rooms had been thrown together into one, and this was used temporarily as a public chapel.  Just as the young Redemptorists arrived, Father Petcherine was preaching to the congregation.  He was a Russian convert, and the new-comers were astonished at his good English and his eloquence.  He was one of the many extraordinary men who adorned the order at that time.  He was master not only of his native tongue, but of English, German, Italian, French, and modern Greek, and could preach well in all of these languages.  Clapham was reached on September 23, 1848, and shortly afterwards Father Walworth was sent to do missionary as well as parish work in Worcestershire, and remained there the greater part of the two years which were spent by our Americans in England.

From Clapham Brother Hecker wrote, on September 27, 1848: 

“I am at present, dear mother, in a newly-established house in the city of London, having come here by order of my superiors to continue and finish my studies.  Bodily I am nearer to you than I was, and naturally speaking I am much more at home here than I was on the Continent.  But this is of little or no moment, for a good religious should find his home where he can best execute the will of his Divine Master.  And would you not, dear mother, rather see me in China than in the United States if, by being there, I should be more agreeable to our Blessed Saviour, who left the house of His Father to save us poor abandoned sinners upon the earth?  Our house here is situated somewhat out of the dense and busy part of the city, at Clapham; a fine garden is attached to it, and even in a worldly view I could not desire it to be more agreeable.  And did not our Lord promise to give those who would leave all to follow Him, ’a hundred fold more in this world and life everlasting in the world to come’?  Alas! how many profess to believe in the Bible and have no faith in the words which our Lord spoke,” etc., etc.