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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
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.
1 Benedictines of Stanbrook, In a Great Tradition (London, 1956) p. 7 Google Scholar.
2 Crawford, P., Women and Religion in England 1500–1720 (London, 1993) p. 22 Google Scholar; Hilton, J. A., Catholic Lancashire: From Reformation to Renewal 1559–1991 (Chichester, 1994) p. 4 Google Scholar.
3 The Benedictine nuns from Ghent fled via Antwerp to London in June 1794. William Dicconson of Wrightington in Lancashire was instrumental in getting some of the community to Fernyhalgh, some to Little Singleton and some to Wrightington. They were reunited in Preston in 1795. The exact date of this establishment appears uncertain. For some years Lancashire had, therefore, two female religious communities. This order is now at St. Mary’s Abbey, Oulton, Stone, Staffordshire. See Hilton, Catholic Lancashire, pp. 82–3.
4 Benedictines of Stanbrook, In a Great Tradition, p. 32. By 1645 the community had reached 50 and this size contributed to the foundation of the Paris house.
5 Hampson, N., The Terror in the French Revolution (London, 1981), pp. 14–22 Google Scholar.
6 Dame Ann Teresa Partington, A Brief Narrative of the Benedictine Dames of Cambray, of their Sufferings while in the hands of the French Republicans, and of their arrival in England. The original manuscript is in the archives of Stanbrook Abbey. Thanks for permission to consult this and other relevant manuscripts are gratefully given to Dame Margaret Truran, archivist, and to the present community. Dame Ann Teresa’s narrative is much quoted in In a Great Tradition, in The Downside Review 25 (1906), pp. 261–280 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and in the Catholic Record Society 13 (1913). It is the latter publication used hereafter. A Brief Narrative, pp. 21–22. Many of the possessions of the convent found their way into the Musée de Cambrai which was heavily damaged during World War I. Some archives survive in the Archives Departmentales du Nord in Lille. See Wolfe, H. R., ‘Cambrai’s Imprint on the Life of Lady Falkland’, English Benedictine History Symposium 16 (1998), p. 71 Google Scholar.
7 Alston, C., ‘The Cambrai Nuns’, The Downside Review 26 (1907), p. 21 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 A Brief Narrative, p. 24.
9 Ibidem, pp. 25–27.
10 Ibidem, pp. 30–31. See list of nuns in Appendix 1. In 1906 the sixteen Carmelite nuns were beatified. See Dolan, G., ‘English Benedictine Missions’, The Downside Review 25 (1906), pp. 227 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Alston, ‘The Cambrai Nuns’, pp. 20–21.
12 A Brief Narrative, pp. 32–35.
13 Bossy, J., The English Catholic Community 1570–1850 (London, 1975), pp. 60, 184–189Google Scholar; Bossy, J., ‘English Catholics after 1688’ in Grell, O. P., Israel, J. I. & Tyacke, N. (eds.), From Persecution to Toleration: the Glorious Revolution and Religion in England (Oxford, 1991), pp. 370–386 Google Scholar; Gibson, W., Church, State and Society, 1700–1850 (Basingstoke, 1994), p. 1 Google Scholar; Hayden, C., Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England. A Political and Social Study (Manchester, 1993), pp. 2–12 Google Scholar.
14 Henriques, U., Religious Toleration in England 1787–1833 (London, 1961), p. 102 Google Scholar.
15 Gibson, Church, State and Society, pp. 48–51, 71; Bellenger, D. A., The French Exiled Clergy in the British Isles after 1789 (Bath, 1986), pp. 1–3 Google Scholar.
16 O’Brien, S., ‘ Terra Incognita: the Nun in Nineteenth-Century England’, Past and Present 121 (1988), p. 110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 Many of these communities moved subsequently to one or several other locations in other counties. Only the Augustinian canonesses from Bruges eventually returned to the continent.
18 See Bellenger, D., ‘The French Revolution and the Religious Orders: Three Communities 1789–1815’, The Downside Review 98 (1980), p. 25–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Bellenger, French Exiled Clergy, pp. 83–92; Lewis, D. B. Wyndham (ed.), A History of the Benedictine Nuns of Dunkirk (London, 1958), pp. 104, 115, 130Google Scholar; Forster, A. M. C., ‘The Chronicles of the English Poor Clares of Rouen’, Recusant History 18 (1986/7), p. 158 Google Scholar.
20 A Brief Narrative, p. 34.
21 See Lally, J. E. & Gnosspelius, J. B., History of Much Woolton (Woolton, 1975)Google Scholar.
22 Hilton, Catholic Lancashire, p. 70; Bossy, J., ‘Catholic Lancashire in the Eighteenth Century’ in Bossy, J. & Jupp, P. (eds.), Essays Presented to Michael Roberts (Belfast, 1976), pp. 54–57 Google Scholar.
23 Hilton, Catholic Lancashire, p. 72.
24 Dolan, G., ‘Lancashire and the Benedictines’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 49 (1897), pp. 130–152 Google Scholar.
25 Foster, I. (ed.). The Register of the Parish of Childwall, Part II 1681–1753, transcribed by Dickinson, R. & F., Lancashire Parish Register Society 122 (1983)Google Scholar. As well as marriages celebrated at Woolton Hall, the deaths of the priests at Woolton are recorded.
26 The chapel became known as St. Bennet’s priory. It was enlarged in 1828 and demolished in 1872. Mary, Viscountess Molyneux was the daughter of Lord Brundenell, eldest son of the 2nd Earl of Cardigan. She married the Hon. Richard Molyneux in 1705, and brought a dowry of £11,000; her marriage settlement was £1,200 a year.
27 Stonor, R. J., Liverpool’s Hidden Story (Billinge, 1957), p. 62 Google Scholar; Blundell, F. O., Old Catholic Lancashire, vol. II (London, 1941), p. 105 Google Scholar.
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.
29 Hollinshead, J. E., ‘Return of Papists for the Parish of Childwall in the Diocese of Chester, October 1706’, North West Catholic History 26 (1999), pp. 21–27 Google Scholar; Worrall, E. S. (ed.), Return of Papists 1767, Catholic Record Society, occ. Pub. 1 (1980)Google Scholar; Easter communicant lists drawn up during the first decade of the nineteenth century record about 200 communicants, Liverpool City Record Office, St. Mary’s Woolton, 282MAR4/1.
30 Scott, G., Gothic Rage Undone: English Monks in the Age of the Enlightenment (Bath, 1992), p. 7 Google Scholar.
31 Brewer was one of only two English Benedictine monks to achieve this qualification in the eighteenth century.
32 Green, B., The English Benedictine Congregation (London, 1980), pp. 28–32 Google Scholar.
33 Williams, J. A. (ed.), Post-Reformation Catholicism in Bath, Catholic Record Society 65 (1975), pp. 66–70, 105Google Scholar.
34 Green, Benedictine Congregation, p. 34; Green, B., ‘The Founder of Ampleforth: Bede Brewer’, Ampleforth Journal 84 (1979), p. 136 Google Scholar.
35 At the beginning of the eighteenth century there had been about 80 Benedictine monks on the English mission; by the 1790s there were 40–50. See Scott, Gothic Rage Undone, pp. 18, 41; Bellenger, D. A., ‘A Tale of Two Churches: The French Revolution and the English and French Catholic Communities. Some Reflections’ in Hilton, J. A. (ed.), The Loveable West: Essays Presented to Dr. M. J. Moore-Rinvolucri (Wigan, 1990), p. 18 Google Scholar.
36 Green, English Benedictine Congregation, pp. 15, 27–28; Burke, T., Catholic History of Liverpool (Liverpool, 1910), pp. 18–25 Google Scholar, Bellenger, ‘Tale of Two Churches’, pp. 23–26.
37 A Brief Narrative, p. 35.
38 Green, English Benedictine Congregation, pp. 15, 30.
39 Harris, S. A., ‘Robert Adam (1728–1792), Architect, and Woolton Hall, Liverpool’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 102 (1951), pp. 171–177 Google Scholar. Ashton had purchased Woolton Hall in 1772 from Revd. Bartholomew Booth.
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.
47 Archives of Stanbrook, Account Book 1795–1803.
48 Ibidem.
49 Edwards, E., ‘Salford Hall—or ‘The Nunnery’, Worcestershire Catholic History Society 27 (1976), p. 21 Google Scholar.
50 Stanbrook Abbey archives, letter 5 August 1795; Bellenger, ‘A Tale of Two Churches’, pp. 23–26. The spelling of the abbé’s name varies in contemporary material: Pernet and Pernez predominate.
51 Birt, H. R., Obit Book of the English Benedictines from 1600–1912 (Edinburgh, 1913), p. 129 Google Scholar.
52 Archives of Stanbrook, Account Book 1795–1803.
53 Benedictines of Stanbrook, In a Great Tradition, pp. 42,–49. The habit was resumed in 1823.
54 Alston, ‘The Cambrai Nuns’, p. 21.
55 A Brief Narrative, p. 35.
56 Brown, R. Stewart, ‘Notes on Childwall’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 65 (1913), pp. 77–92 Google Scholar; Harris, ‘Robert Adam and Woolton Hall’, pp. 165–167. Nicholas Ashton’s first wife, Mary Philpot (d. 1777), was heiress to considerable salt mines at Northwich in Cheshire.
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.
61 Gooch, L., ‘The Religion for a Gentleman’: The Northern Catholic Gentry in the Eighteenth Century’, Recusant History 23 (1997), pp. 560–565 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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.
84 Gillow, J. & Trappes-Lomax, R. (eds.), The Diary of the ‘Blue Nuns’ or Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, at Paris 1658–1810, Catholic Record Society 8 (1910), p. xiii Google Scholar.
85 Lunn, D., The English Benedictines 1540–1688. From Reformation to Revolution (London, 1980), p. 224 Google Scholar; Blundell, , Old Catholic Lancashire, vol. III, p. 216 Google Scholar.
86 See Appendix I.
87 Victoria County History of Lancashire, vol. III, p. 107 Google Scholar.
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.
97 Mason, M. J., ‘The Blue Nuns in Norwich: 1800–1805’, Recusant History 24 (1998), pp. 89–118 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
98 O’Brien, S., ‘French Nuns in Nineteenth-Century England’, Past and Present 154 (1997), pp. 142–180 Google Scholar. During the nineteenth century many new religious orders and congregations, often originating in France and Belgium and not necessarily contemplative in style, established houses in Britain.
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’.