CATHERINE SOPHIA LISSA WOODLEY: Sister of Mercy.
It has been commented upon regarding the number of descendants of George Arthur Perry, who have gone into the medical and nursing professions. Our ancestry in relation to 'surgeons' goes back to our 2,3 and 4 x Great Grandfathers (possibly 5, I believe William Wilson, father of William Mary Randolph nee Wilson's own father was also a surgeon, but have not been able to confirm this other than a mention on a record which I no longer have to hand). Nursing features too, although G.Grandmother Edith Youell and her sisters, Gertrude and Ada nursed during their life, to name a few, it is a more distant relation that perhaps has the best documented career.
Archive of Union of Sisters of Mercy Birmingham ref: GB1856/0/200/8/8
Catherine Sophia Lissa Woodley:
Catherine was the Granddaughter of Catherine Jane Randolph, the sister of Margery Rosella Pye nee Randolph, so a distant cousin, in my instance it is 2nd cousin twice removed.
Catherine first caught my interest as she had a relatively easy name to follow, and yet I found very little about her, then I found a probate record indicating her leaving the amount of £10.
This incited my curiosity and therefore I sent for the will, perhaps also to see if she was the same Catherine Woodley found in the 1901 census within the convent at Bermondsey.
The probate record arrived and was in fact an administration document for probate. It gave an address of 40 North End Rd St John's Wood, but an address of death at St George's Retreat, Ditchling, Sussex on 5th Dec 1925.
'Intestate:- a spinster, without father, not possessed of Real Estate leaving Maria Jane Woodley, widow, her lawful mother and only next of kin who has since died without having taken upon herself letters of administration of the estate of the intestate.'
Probate was then passed to Catherine's brother John Richard Woodley of Gresham St. London, accountant.
Returning to the 1901 census I contacted the Bermondsey Sisters of Mercy Archivist. She sent copies of a couple of records related to her admission into the convent and the following information.
'As far as we know from the records of Bermondsey, she was a postulant (i.e. someone living in the convent wishing to become a sister, the first stage) for just over a year before being received as a novice. Then, for some reason she was transferred from Bermondsey to St John’s Wood which was the convent which ran the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. This is a large and famous Catholic hospital that still exists today and the Bermondsey convent had been asked to provide sisters to run it in 1865 and this led to the St John’s Wood convent being founded. At this period, Sisters of Mercy tended not to move from one convent to another unless going to make a new foundation but Catherine seems to have been an exception. There’s no record of why she moved but perhaps, as the main work of the Bermondsey sisters at the time was teaching, it was thought that she might be more suited to work in the hospital. There is a record of another postulant moving from Bermondsey to St John’s Wood in that year so they might also have been ‘short staffed’ and in need of help. As she is still there in 1911, it looks like she did go on to become a professed sister but unfortunately, we don’t have the records from St John’s Wood to confirm that. These are held by the archive of the Union of Sisters of Mercy in Birmingham.
Contact with the archivist in Birmingham helped with more information and a possible explaination for the change in convents.
Background information:- 'You may or may not already know a little about the Sisters of Mercy as an order, but if I provide you with a brief overview you will have an idea of the aims and charism of the order into which Sister Augustine entered. The Sisters of Mercy were founded in 1831 in Dublin by the Venerable Catherine McAuley who used her large inheritance to open a ‘House of Mercy’ in a wealthy area of the city. This would take in vulnerable young women and children and provide accommodation and education (schools for the children and training for the women who were then helped to find work). Education has been one of the continuing main focuses of the Mercies throughout their history. They were one of the new 'active' orders of nuns that were springing up in this country during the nineteenth century. The Sisters of Mercy quickly spread throughout Ireland, and Catherine made her first English foundation to Bermondsey, London in 1839, after which time the convents quickly spread throughout England, and over to Australia, New Zealand, America and elsewhere.
A famous part of the Mercy story is their role in nursing alongside Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War. This is relevant to your enquiry as after the Crimean War the group of Sisters who returned had several applications for foundations awaiting them. The foundation that the Sisters undertook was one from Cardinal Wiseman to found a hospital for the poor and long-term sick. Five sisters arrived in Great Ormond Street, Bloomsbury in November 1856, where Cardinal Wiseman celebrated Mass, blessed and dedicated the premises and thus began the Hospital of St John & St Elizabeth. Six years later Sir George Bowyer introduced the Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem to England, and in 1864 built the Church of the Order in the grounds of the hospital in Great Ormond Street. The Sisters became affiliated with the Knights and wore the cross of Malta on their habits; they also participated in the spiritual benefits of the Order. St John the Baptist became one of the patrons and the hospital then adopted the title of St John and St Elizabeth. At the end of the nineteenth century, land was purchased in St John’s Wood to expand the hospital as it had grown. Permission was sought from Rome and the Church was moved ‘stone by stone’ from Great Ormond Street to the new site. Over the next years the Hospital was built around the church of St John of Jerusalem. In 1897, four of the sisters who had served in the Crimea and subsequently in the Hospital were decorated personally by Queen Victoria with the Royal Red Cross. The sisters continued nursing in the hospital until 1991, though they still retain connections with the hospital to the present day'
Archive of Union of Sisters of Mercy Birmingham
Catherine's story:- 'To return to your specific enquiry, as you are already aware, Catherine seems to have originally entered in the Bermondsey Mercy convent and then been transferred to St John's and St Elizabeth's (hereafter SSJE). There is mention in the Bermondsey annals for 1903 that "Sister M Crescentia Woodley, who had gone with Mother M Winefride to nurse her during her convalescence, obtained leave to be transferred to that Community, which was accordingly granted, & she commenced her Noviceship at St John’s Wood.”
Here is what I've been able to find in relation to her religious life at SSJE:
There is a little confusion about her date of entry to the SSJE convent. As you will see from the attachments, the illuminated profession register (archive ref GB1856/0/200/8/8) has the entry date as 15th March 1901. However, according to the register for noviceship (archive ref GB1856/0/200/8/1) she was transferred from Bermondsey Convent as a novice on 16th August 1902, taking the name Sr Mary Augustine (it seems likely that the religious name changed as the convent was changed). We know that she made her first profession in the convent chapel on 15th August 1903 in the presence of Sister Mary Anastasia Kelly who was one of the Crimean veterans. In fact, when Sr Augustine was in SSJE convent there were still at least two of the Crimean Sisters there so she would no doubt have known them.
Unfortunately we do not hold an annal book for the convent of St John's & St Elizabeth's and this is the kind of record that tends to hold more individual information on the activities of the Sisters. It seems very likely, particularly with her initial transfer to nurse Sr Winefride, that Sr Augustine was a nurse in the hospital and I'll send some snippets about the hospital as attachments.
We know from the Acts of Chapter and Election book (archive ref GB1856/0/200/13/1) for the SSJE Convent that Sr Augustine was elected- Bursar for the community in July 1908 and held the office at least until 1922, at which point that volume finishes. The job of Bursar was quite a significant one, and when the Sisters list the members of the community in the volume, the Bursar is underneath only the Superior and her Assistant.
To complete Catherine’s story I obtained her death certificate. This confirmed that she died at St George’s Retreat in Ditchling. This was a hospital providing care for those with physical and mental health problems in Burgess Hill. Care was given by the Augustine Sisters (Sisters of Mercy)
Poor Catherine died from 1. 'Exhaustion from Mania, duration 3 months. 2. Convulsions duration 4 days. on 5th December 1925.
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