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From Cambrai to Woolton: Lancashire’s First Female Religious House
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
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Refugees, displaced persons and enemy aliens, either individually or in groups, are, regrettably, well known to the early twenty-first century. Resettlement arrangements, counselling and aid appeals are also well-used practices. In May 1795 sixteen women, many elderly, reached Woolton in south Lancashire three weeks after leaving France. They were homeless, virtually destitute and had suffered the trauma and hardship of incarceration for eighteen months in a French prison. The women had little control over their immediate destination, were dependent on the philanthropy of others, and within a few short weeks were at work teaching in a school to earn their livelihoods. They also had to live within a neighbourhood totally unfamiliar with nuns and religious communities. The Benedictine convent of Our Lady of Consolation from Cambrai in northern France had been relocated to Woolton.
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References
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1 Benedictines of Stanbrook, In a Great Tradition (London, 1956) p. 7 Google Scholar.
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28 I am indebted to Abbot G. Scott for his transcription of these letters by Brewer. They are to be found at the Archives Departmentales du Nord, Lille 31, Lille 18H31. The 1801 census records a population of 439 in Woolton township.
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38 Green, English Benedictine Congregation, pp. 15, 30.
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40 Clifton, vol. 1772–1788, nos. 37, 53. This house is unidentified.
41 Lancashire Record Office, QDL/WD.
42 Liverpool City Record Office, 354MUC. I am indebted to Miss Janet Gnosspelius for these references and for the considerable local knowledge and interpretation she brought to bear on this material.
43 Archives of Stanbrook Abbey, Account Book 1795–1803.
44 Liverpool City Record Office, Ordnance Survey maps and the Tithe Apportionment Map of Much Woolton (1840).
45 Photographs taken in 1999.
46 Benedictines of Stanbrook, In a Great Tradition, p. 42.
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57 Archives of Stanbrook, Account Book 1795–1803.
58 Stewart Brown, ‘Notes on Childwall’, pp. 77–92. Conceivably the gift of chocolate from Mrs. Watt was from the wife of Richard Watt, recent purchaser of Speke Hall situated three miles from Woolton. Prior to this purchase Speke Hall had been left largely uninhabited by the Beauclerk family. See The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of Lancashire, Farrer, W. & Brownbill, J. (eds.), (London, 1906-14), vol. III, p. 136 Google Scholar.
59 Archives of Stanbrook, Account Book 1795–1803.
60 Ibidem.
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62 Archives of Stanbrook, letter 5 August 1795; Account Book 1795–1803. The Constable family had a long association with the Benedictines; several members of the family had entered religious houses during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see Birt, Obit Book, pp. xxxv, 34, 73, 105, 218–219. Edward and Francis were the sons of Edward Sheldon, brother of Dame Elizabeth Frances Sheldon. Edward, junior, assumed the name of Constable on succeeding to the Burton Constable estate, as did his brother Francis.
63 Ibidem.
64 Ibidem.
65 Ibidem.
66 Edwards, ‘Salford Hall’, p. 6; Benedictines of Stanbrook, In a Great Tradition, p. 43; A Brief Narrative, p. 35. Archives of Stanbrook, Account Book 1795–1850 records moneys received from the ‘Committee’ at the rate of one guinea per nun per month.
67 Archives of Stanbrook, Account Book 1795–1803.
68 Green, English Benedictine Congregation, p. 31.
69 Archives Departmentales du Nord, Lille 18H31, Clifton 1772–88, nos. 37, 48.
70 Whitehead, M., ‘Not Inferior to any in this part of the Kingdom’: Woolton Academy and the English Career of the Reverend Bartholomew Booth, Schoolmaster’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 142 (1993), pp. 19–38 Google Scholar.
71 Smith, J., ‘Bishop Eton, Near Woolton’, Woolton Annual 1983 Google Scholar; Lewis, S., ‘Bishop Eton: a Postscript’, Woolton Annual 1986 Google Scholar.
72 By 1794 the Benedictines had left the continent and established a joint school at Acton Burnell in Shropshire. Schools were tried at Vernon Hall, Liverpool and Scholes near Prescot in Lancashire before Ampleforth was developed after 1808. See Moore-Rinvolucri, M. J., ‘The Catholic Contribution to Liverpool Education in the Eighteenth Century’, Dublin Review 228 (1954), pp. 284–286 Google Scholar; Scott, Gothic Rage Undone, pp. 174—176.
73 Moore-Rinvolucri, ‘Catholic Contribution’, pp. 282–290.
74 Ibidem, p. 291; Benedictines of Stanbrook, In a Great Tradition, p. 42.
75 Archives of Stanbrook, Account Book 1795–1803.
76 See Table I.
77 Archives of Stanbrook, Box File of Correspondence 1795–1818, letter 3 December 1806.
78 Alston, ‘The Cambrai Nuns’, p. 22.
79 Archives of Stanbrook, Dame Ann Teresa Partington’s Book, pp. 4–14.
80 Moore-Rinvolucri, ‘Catholic Contribution’, p. 291.
81 Alston, ‘The Cambrai Nuns’, p. 22.
82 Dame Elizabeth Anselma Ann, Dame Margaret Burgess, Dame Teresa Josepha Walmesley and Sister Frances Anne Pennington had died early in 1794 in prison. Dame Elizabeth Bernard Haggerston died in July 1795 near Guildford in Surrey.
83 Green, English Benedictine Congregation, p. 26.
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88 See Appendix II.
89 Exactly why Sister Jane Horsman left the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in York to come to Woolton in 1806 is unclear. Her arrival presupposes some communication and connection between the two communities and/or their members by the early 1800s.
90 Archives of Stanbrook, Acts of Visitation 1805 Ms..
91 Archives of Stanbrook, Box File of Correspondence 1795–1818, letters 19 November 1806, 29 November 1806, 3 December 1806, 31 December 1806, January 1807, 26 April 1807; Edwards, ‘Salford Hall’, pp. 2–5.
92 The nuns were to remain at Salford Hall until 1838. The Woolton school was continued in the same property by a Miss Lathom, see Moore-Rinvolucri, ‘Catholic Contribution’, p. 292.
93 Archives of Stanbrook, Box File of Correspondence 1795–1818, letter 30 January 1807, Account Book 1795–1876.
94 Edwards, ‘Salford Hall’, pp. 9–10.
95 The community remains at Stanbrook Abbey, Callow End, Worcester.
96 Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool Mercury 29 March 1822. I am indebted to Dr. D. Pope for bringing this reference to my attention.
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99 Information derived from archives at Stanbrook and Birt, Obit Book of the English Benedictines. Lay sisters are recorded as ‘sister’ and choir nuns as ‘dame’.