Like many of the nineteenth century female Religious Orders, The Society of the Faithful Companions of Jesus had their beginnings in France in 1820, when they were founded by a young French widow, Marie, Madeleine Victoire, Vicomtesse de Bonnault d’Houet to work for the salvation of souls.

Despite opposition from the Jesuits, she based her Rule upon their Constitution; and in 1826 Pope Leo Xlll gave his approval to the Order and their Rule. In 1830, fear of a return to religious persecution by the Republican forces in France, led Madame d’Houet and her companions to seek refuge in England, and their subsequent work in education and amongst the destitute soon became well known in both England and Europe.

The arrival of the Faithful Companions of Jesus to work in the new and impoverished community of Middlesbrough was as a result of a request by Bishop Robert Cornthwaite of Beverley. The time of their arrival coincided with a period of instability and uncertainty in the Mission, which was awaiting the arrival of a new Mission priest after a period of conflict between the previous priest, Andrew Burns, and a vocal Fenian group in one of the more outlying areas of the mission. The town itself consisted of very small crowded cottages crammed into every available space, with little attention given to considerations of hygiene and sanitation. The aim of the Iron Masters was the housing of a rapidly expanding workforce, who flocked to the town in search of employment in the blast furnaces springing up along the banks of the River Tees, and spewing their fumes and smoke over the town. Original civic ideals drawn up by the Middlesbrough Owners encompassing sewerage, drainage and paved roads had long been abandoned. Typhoid and cholera epidemics were rife, and lung and chest diseases also commonplace amongst the townspeople. Both priests and Sisters shared the miserable living conditions of the people. The first Superior, Mother Lucy Fletcher died in 1874 after contracting tuberculosis. Her family were so appalled at the poverty and surroundings of the convent that they protested to the priest Fr Lacy, who gave them short shrift: ‘Other peoples’ daughters are here too, and they have made no objection.’ His acerbity was in part due to the fact that he and his assistants lived in very similar circumstances; indeed, one of the assistant priests looking after the mission when the Sisters arrived, Adrian Van den Heuval died the same year as a result of contracting typhus through his visiting of the poor who lived in such appalling conditions.

The convent in Middlesbrough was established in a group of small cottages in Temperance Place or ‘The Court’ on May 9th 1873. The Mission had agreed to pay the Sisters £150 per annum for their keep, and the priests to supply their spiritual needs. There were initially five Sisters in the community under the leadership of Mother Lucy Fletcher, and in 1927, one of the survivors of that original group jotted down her memories of what they found on their arrival: ‘The Court was a kind of Square situated in the very poorest quarter of the town. It was reached by a long narrow opening from the main street, so narrow indeed, that should a cab get into it, there was no getting out. We had, perforce, to alight at the entrance passage, and carry our furniture and bundles to the three cottages, but even these were not entirely our own, for the end room of one had been entirely removed to make a public passage into the adjoining Church of St Mary’s. The consequent noise and continual traffic were distressing and trying.’ (Convent of Middlesbrough: FCJ Archives).

It seems clear that the local Catholics made a concerted effort to welcome the Sisters; the local school teacher had lit fires and made them a hot meal upon their arrival. The priests had also obviously made an appeal amongst the congregation for furnishings; for items listed in an inventory of their belongings drawn up a few days after their arrival the sisters noted that they had 19 plates, 11 egg cups, 1 cup and 8 saucers! The name of the courtyard where the convent was established derived from the fact that one of the walls of the local Temperance Hall made up one side; a reflection of the never-ending battle by all the local churches to combat the high levels of drunkenness and drink related crime prevalent in the town, where much of the population at that time was made up of single males living in lodging houses. This was a consequence of a town built around iron making – an industry where: ‘the main equipment needed [by the workers] is health and strength. They must be hale and strong enough to lift bars of iron and carry them from one place in the works to another, or to wheel a barrow full of ironstone from the kiln to the furnace’ (1902. Lady Florence Bell, At the Works). Taking in lodgers, or keeping lodging houses was one of the few ways women could contribute to the family income, a fact borne out by the description of The Court given in the FCJ record. Out of the remaining six houses, ‘5 houses on the terrace were lodgings for 40 men, 4 by day and 4 by night, alternately, occupying the same quarters, yet seldom meeting except at week ends, when work at the steel furnaces was off.’ (Convent of Middlesbrough: FCJ Archives.). One of their neighbours was described as a good Catholic woman who ‘kept eight lodgers in great order and trained them as regards their conduct before the Sisters. As soon as the nuns came into sight on their way to or from school, it was “Clear into the house, Mick”, “Out of the way, Pat and Jack” “out of sight all of ye! Here’s the ladies coming”…Only on Sunday, when dressed in their best, would she allow “her lads” to appear before us’ (ibid). Other lodging houses were less well organised: ‘Think what pay-day meant! On Friday night the revels began, when the men returned to their homes, most of them intoxicated. The quarrels and fights often lasted through the night. On one occasion the trembling nuns heard an unusually heavy thud against one of their shutters, followed by a cry and then an ominous hush. A man was murdered outside!’ (ibid).

From the moment of their arrival, the Sisters were involved in the work of Catholic education. At first, the only school was housed in an old windmill behind the church, but the arrival of the new parish priest, Richard Lacy in August 1873 inaugurated not only a period of building in the Mission, but the start of a long and close relationship between him and the Sisters. A new school-chapel was built in the Newport area of the town, then under construction. In 1875, new buildings replaced the school at the windmill, and in 1876 work began on a large new church to replace the small inadequate chapel. The Sisters were in charge of the schools, although they found a male teacher to take the boys. They found that ‘our time was now fully occupied from morning till night: visiting the sick, poor, giving instructions and teaching in both day schools and night schools’ (ibid). As in other places, the Sisters also opened a private day School to help finance their work in the mission. It opened ‘in one of the rooms (the only large one) in the most presentable of the cottages. The community had to remove their mattresses from the desks and tables every morning, before the arrival of the pupils’. (ibid) Another innovation at the Court convent was the making of the attic into a small chapel, where Pius X allowed the Sisters to keep the Blessed Sacrament: ‘The chapel was the tiniest of attics, so damp that the walls had to be hung with sheets (all that our extreme poverty could afford) to keep the wet and the whitewash from staining our poor Habits. The ceiling was so low that it almost touched the head of the priest who was celebrating Mass’.

Shortly before the Sisters left the Court in 1876, the Superior General, Reverend Mother Josephine Petit, accompanied by her assistant Mère Marie de Bussy, paid her first visit to Middlesbrough. It was a day of both joy and grief. The ‘whole Court – even the lodgers taking their share in the welcome afforded to our distinguished visitors. Eighty of the Christian Doctrine women [a confraternity set up by the Sisters in 1875] wearing their badges and ribbons were assembled outside the convent. All the priests were there, and the school-boys, to give Notre Mère a good lusty English cheer’. The grief was the sight by Madame Petit of ‘the utter poverty and almost destitute condition in which her daughters were living, she could not restrain her tears: “O my children” she cried “if I had only known, you should have never suffered like this!” For a few days, they shared the poverty; Mère Marie had to climb a narrow steep ladder to reach a small attic, and in the room used by Madame Petit, although ‘clean, tidy and arranged as suitably as our means allowed, the ceiling was held up by newspapers pasted there by a young agile nun on the morning of their arrival.’ The local women were more surprised by the fact that the Superiors were not grand ladies and one ‘voiced the general surprise: “Law, Sister, but she’s dressed like the rest of ye!”’

Richard Lacy , the priest at the Mission had gradually been buying up the buildings of the Court and demolishing them in order to make room for a church that could be considered fitting for Catholic worship. The last property to be bought up housed a rag-man with ‘his motley wares’, who was the Sister’s immediate neighbour and had obviously not been the most pleasant of neighbours as the Sisters felt it ‘was greatly to our relief as may easily be imagined. Then began the very unsavoury, but very necessary task of cleaning out his former abode. These details baffle description! Whilst clearing out his wares and cleansing the floors and walls which had never before been cleaned, our good nuns would rush from school to Court, at intervals to lend a helping hand’. Soon afterwards, in ‘1876, our career at the Court, with all its joys and sorrows, came to an end. Our humble dwelling had to be thrown down, in order to enlarge the site of the present Cathedral’. (The new church of St Mary, which was built on the site by Fr Lacy, opened in August 1878. Six months later the Diocese of Beverley was divided into two new dioceses, Leeds and Middlesbrough and the new church became the Cathedral of the Diocese of Middlesbrough). The ‘flitting’ of the Sisters to their new quarters in William Street was not without it’s’ humour: ‘We had been packing our belongings for several days, between the intervals of lessons and domestic work. Fr Lacy, who had a keen sense of humour, watched the proceedings covertly from behind the thin curtains of his sitting room. To elude his watchful, interested eye, the nuns managed to slip their personal belongings into their counterpanes, and when the good priests removed from the window, snatched up their bundles in readiness to start for William St.’

The Faithful Companions of Jesus are still a part of the Catholic life in Middlesbrough today. One Sister works part-time in one of the local parishes as Parish Sister and the private day school grew to provide a Catholic grammar school education for girls until 1973, when Middlesbrough changed to a Comprehensive form of education. The Sisters offered their school to the Catholic community as an 11-16 Comprehensive, and although no Sisters teach there now, they still retain overall control of the school and as such continue their involvement with Catholic education in the town that began 134 years ago.

Margaret Turnham

permission to quote from the Convent record courtesy of the Generalate of the Faithful Companions of Jesus