Born of Italian parents at 2 Clarence Street, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, 14 November 1852. His parents, Joseph Louis and Jane Henrietta Casartelli, had resided in the area for some time. He was believed to have been considered an intelligent as well as pious child, something which was felt he learned from his mother.
Education
At the age of nine he attended Salford Catholic Grammar School and became fluent in French, German, Italian and Spanish. Whilst there he came under the influence of two masters, Canon Augustus De Clerc and Bruno de Splenter. Louis went on to study at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw where he won a gold medal for classics as well earning an MA degreeexternally from University of London in 1873. In 1874 he began specialist theology studies at the University of Louvain, in Belgium, where he also specialised in Eastern languages, an interest first acquired – so he said – through a chance encounter with a book in the Manchester Free Library. He was an avid diary keeper, often writing in several languages on the one page.
On 28 August 1903 Louis was appointed Bishop of Salford but wrote to Rome begging to decline. His appeal was rejected and he wrote to Abbot Francis Aidan GasquetOSB "if the wish did not sound rather an impiety one could almost desire that Cardinal Gotti might have held me suspect of Liberalism and other dreadful things". He was consecrated in St John's Cathedral, on 21 September 1903 by Archbishop-elect Francis Bourne, with Bishops Thomas Whiteside and Samuel Webster Allen as co-consecrators. The poor Catholics of Manchester and Salford took great pride in the appointment, and when charged that nobody with any intelligence could possibly be a Catholic, would reply "Well just look at our Bishop". Bishop Casartelli was one of the first bishops in England to attempt concerted Catholic Action. He produced a monthly journal The Federationist and never failed to make a contribution on contemporary issues. He became the founder and president of the Manchester Dante Society from 1906, The Catenian Association from 1908, Manchester Egyptian Association from 1908 to 1910, the president of the Manchester Statistical Society from 1898 to 1900 and a supporter of the Oriental, Geographical, Antiquarian and other societies. Casartelli contributed a number of articles to the Catholic Encyclopedia. On 18 December 1918 he was elected an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society which he declares in his diary of the day as "a most astonishing and unexpected honour." He was awarded the Order of Leopold.
