Skip to main content

Catherine Sophia Lissa Woodley: Sister of Mercy

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.



crown copyright

'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'


St John &Elizabeth Hospital

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.


crown copyright

© 2016 St Georges Park Public Consultation Website.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

GEORGE ARTHUR PERRY 1851-1934: WHO ARE YOU MR P?

 GEORGE ARTHUR PERRY 1851-1934 WHO ARE YOU MR P? As with many people, my interest in genealogy started shortly after the death of my father. He had distanced himself from his family and rarely talked about them, so I really was starting from scratch. Small recollections of him speaking of an Uncle Ted, Uncle Percy, Uncle Ernie, Uncle Les and Auntie Dorrie, helped with a few of the names, whilst he also spoke of an older Uncle in Australia. Stories of his grandparents were sparce, he recalled a man, who wore a fez and smoking jacket and recalled that he had married the 'Nanny'. And so from these few snippets, so the the journey to find out 'Who are you Mr P?' began.  So where to begin with the story, well if I relayed the information as it was found, we would begin at the end and worked back to the mid 1870's until the brick wall was broken down when an incident occurred in 1881, which paved the way in finding the elusive early history due to a name change. The quest...

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 48. Strength.

  FLORENCE STEWART PERRY nee ANDREWS 1882-1957 Kindly shared by JP If you have read any of my previous posts you will have perhaps noticed, I write a lot about the women in my tree. In the most part this is because many focus on the males in their tree, their occupations, their military service etc, but there are often 'strong' women beside them, caring for their children, managing on what money may or may not be coming in and often undertaking sideline home work which was so badly paid. One of those women was my Great Grandmother Eliza Pitts, but I have already written about her under the theme, 'Loss'. So today I am writing about another lady, the wife of my half Grand-Uncle, Florence Stewart Perry nee Andrews wife of John Arthur Perry. When writing his autobiographical journal, 'By Devious Paths' John A. makes this dedication:-  Dedicated to the constant and faithful companion on my Pilgrimage, 'By Devious Paths MY WIFE. Writing this I am well aware that ...

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2022 Week 3 Favourite Photo. Ruth Shaw 1884-1918

  RUTH SHAW 1884-1918. Although my intention is to follow the 12 Ancestors in 12 Months version of these themes, I intend to dip in and out of the weekly prompts, when a suitable theme matches an ancestor I have a story for. In 2021, I chose a photograph of my adoptive Grandad's  mother, grandmother, aunt and 2 sisters, 3 generations of women. 52 Ancestors, 52 weeks Week 4 Favourite photo (mypynthdev.blogspot.com) However whilst sorting through my Mum's wardrobe, we found a photograph of her adoptive Grandmother, Ruth Howe, nee Shaw, whilst I would still consider the May women as my favourite photo, this was indeed genealogy treasure. Ruth was one of nine children born to William Shaw, a coal miner and his wife Rosannah nee Heathcock, both of Netherton nr Dudley in the West Midlands. She was born on 2nd April 1885 (National School Admission Register). In 1895, her mother died and Ruth left school education in May of that year, aged 11. by the 1901 census, a 16 year old Ruth is...