1 March, 2025

Every item that preserves something of the SHCJ’s history is important in its own way, but an especially fascinating and informative donation was made in February last year by Sr Maureen Grigg (name in religion Mary Petroc). The item in question was photograph album which tells the story of the SHCJ’s teaching and pastoral ministries in Newtown, Wales from 1959 to 2000. Full of vivid images accompanied by Sr Maureen’s descriptions of the events and the people featured, it is a wonderful record of the SHCJ’s presence in Wales.

As both the photograph album and the Newtown house diaries report, the first Welsh foundation of the SHCJ began on 1st September 1958. After a ‘hot and crowded’ journey from London and through Birmingham, Mother Mary Laurentia Wisely (baptismal name
Catherine) and Mother Mary Emmanuel Kent (B.N. Marie Monica) met Mother Mary Ultan McEvoy (B.N. Eileen) on the platform at Newtown. Along with Mother Mary Christina Grogan (B.N. Joyce), they were to form the Newtown Community, who lived at a property named Bridge-End during their first year.

From their arrival, the Holy Child sisters were offered help and friendship. Father David Bottrill drove the sisters to their new home while young David Conlin assisted them with their luggage. A pupil at Belmont himself, he had five younger siblings at St Mary’s, the school the community were to take on.

Father Beddoes not only gave the SHCJ nuns ‘a hearty welcome’, but
also brought a gift of fresh vegetables, eggs and a vase of roses. After a great deal of cleaning and shopping for essentials, including milk and a kettle, the sisters sat down at 5 o’clock for a well-earned tea. Sr Christina Grogan arrived in the afternoon and Father Beddoes came to introduce himself to her while bearing a gift of cakes made by the school cook. Even after such a busy day, ‘sleep was long in coming to all’ due to the ‘deafening’ sound of the weir.

The school term began at St Mary’s on Monday 8th September and the sisters found there was a ‘great dearth of books and equipment.’ However, one special item arrived the following Wednesday: a statue of the Holy Child from the Birmingham Community. The children were ‘delighted with it but wonder why He [has] not woken up’.

On Friday 12th September, a ‘most welcome trunk and tea chest’ arrived from Mayfield, but as the nuns unwrapped their bounty, Mr d’Elboux, his daughter Susan Maynard and her daughter Jane arrived from Penmaendyfi. Both father and daughter were pupils at St Leonards, while Jane was preparing to go there herself. Bonded with the Society across three generations in this way, naturally the family wanted to greet their local Holy Child nuns. The sisters were pleased to see them, but M.M. Christina was relieved that they would not take tea since the community possessed only one parlour teacup ‘(from Woolworths)’!

The following year, on 20th July 1959, the community moved to Dolerw. The previous week, the sisters oversaw their first speech day for St Mary’s School. Although unfortunately, percussion instruments for the infants to play had not arrived, the children entertained the sisters, local priests and their parents with a piano recital and a scene from Winnie the Pooh. Fr Beddoes was thanked by Fr Bottrill for all he had done for St Mary’s School, while in turn, Fr Beddoes ‘expressed his happiness at handing over the school to the SHCJ.’

On Monday 27th July, the first Mass was celebrated at Dolerw in the little oratory while Phil Davies worked on the chapel. After a week of cleaning and preparing their new convent, the Sisters celebrated the Feast of St Ignatius with dinner and tea on the lawn at Dolerw and enjoyed ‘beautiful weather!’.

By 1972, the ministries of the Newtown SHCJ included a whole range of activities besides teaching and managing St Mary’s School. They were engaged in the Catechetical instruction of children who attended the local non-Catholic secondary school and took on other parish duties, such as cleaning the Church.

Alongside these duties, the Newtown SHCJ sisters provided support to the entire community, regardless of a recipient’s faith. Sisters Mary Campion King (B.N. Kathleen) Sr Christine Mary Austin (B.N. Elizabeth Marie Josephine) and Sr Christina Grogan managed the Newtown Guides and Brownies which were non- denominational. Sr Margaret Farrell served on the committee for Parents and Friends of those with learning difficulties. The sisters also visited hospitals, retirement homes and elderly individuals such as two men visited by Sr Christina Grogan who had both recently lost their wives.

Sisters Mary Ultan, Maura Healey and Mary Campion helped at the local hospital as members of the British Red Cross. On her first shift at the hospital Sr Mary Ultan ‘gave great merriment to two young nurses by saying “Well, I’ve never shaved anyone before!” when she had to shave three elderly men with an electric razor. The sisters’ contribution was noted by the local B.R.C. president who was heard to state ‘the nuns have been marvelous in coming to our rescue’. As Christina Grogan comments at the close of her Province newsletter article: ‘the Community at Newtown has helped to explode the idea that nuns shut themselves away from the World and its needs!’

In April 1974, St Mary’s was still a relatively small school of 80 children, but as Sister Mary Mathias Yonge commented in the Province Newsletter ‘we are a very happy school’. She illustrates this warm atmosphere with the following anecdote:

A Child in the nursery class sang loudly and clearly:
“Plays him, plays him, olly- golly plays him,”
This is not Welsh, but her own version of the Welsh Sunday School hymn, ‘Praise Him, Praise Him, All God’s Children Praise him’. She danced about in time to her singing, and I thought how typical of our school that the children of emigrants here should be often singing and laughing. There is much more of it than crying. And there is always movement – dancing, singing, playing football, playing Hockey, and all of it full of joy.

The SHCJ left the convent at Dolerw in August 2000, but the Society Welsh connections remain strong with the presence of Sisters Maureen Grigg and Helen Bamber continuing in Newtown and the Society’s Welsh Sister Mary Wayne Gradon’s presence in Harrogate. Sr Wayne’s ministries have spanned across two SHCJ Provinces and include her vital work establishing the Casa Cornelia Law Center with Sr Ann M. Durst in San Diego, which recent events make all the more resonant.

The editor for January 1972 English Province News Summary termed the Newtown SHCJ as ‘a neigbourhood community’ since they kept a particular focus on building ecumenical bridges. Now, perhaps more than ever, it is important to take a moment to admire this open- minded, patient and loving work.