Introduction

The Ursulines came to England at the invitation of a London priest who had heard of their educational work in Tildonk, Belgium. He asked them to come to Clerkenwell, one of the poorest parishes in East London, to teach on his schools.

Thus, on 19th May 1851 with the arrival of three Dutch Sisters and one English sister, the   Ursuline mission in England began.

They initially lodged in one of the worst slums in the city where their neighbours were hostile, referring to them “the Pope’s daughters”. They were ridiculed, their walls daubed with graffiti, and they had to have a bodyguard of young Catholic men when they walked to Mass, so greatly were they maligned and mocked.

Cardinal Wiseman suggested that they should modify their religious costumes and wear bonnets, but they bravely continued to wear their habits, the first women religious in England to do so since the reformation.

They lived and worked in various areas of East London, before moving to Oxford in 1856, where they opened a small school. The community, by now nine Ursulines, was also invited to other parts of the country but times were very hard and money very scarce and so, reluctantly, after ten years of relentless hard work and struggle, they decided that they would have to leave England and return to Belgium – which they did in July 1861.

In his farewell note, Cardinal Wiseman wrote to them:

“So far you have sown. You will return to reap. Without tears, no joy.”

And  how right he turned out to be, by 7th May 1862, they were back- this time in Upton (now Forest Gate), where Fr. McQuoin had found a property which he thought was suitable for them and their educational mission.

They wasted no time. By the end of May 1862, Mothers Angela and Victoire were teaching in cottages in Forest Gate, which grew into the school we now know as St Antony’s Primary Forest Gate.  They also had founded their boarding and day school which was housed in the convent.

Further Details

Foundations in other parts of England followed.

The story of the Ursuline Houses (see table) which once existed in England, is told in the hugely informative “The Ursulines in England 1851-1981”, by Sr Mary Winefride Sturman OSU and the summary above is from her chapter “The Foundation of Upton”, (pages 17-27).

Further details of the history of the Order in England and abroad can be found at:

www.ursulinesuk.org

The Ursuline schools In England have always collaborated and every spring delegates gather for the Ursuline Conference. The organisation and theme of the conference is the responsibility of one school (on rotation) and between 4-6 delegates attend from each school, along with their Headteacher. The Ursuline Community in England is represented, delegates from the Irish Ursuline Schools and Ursuline Sisters from mainland Europe also attend.

It was decided in 2018 that this co-operation and collaboration between the schools needed to be formalised and so the Ursuline Education Community (UEC) was formed (see overleaf). It is fascinating to discover that in 1876, an Ursuline Sister was proposing the values of such an initiative:

“We should leave the status quo to which isolation leads in a teaching vocation. Let us exchange ideas. It will enlighten and edify us, and there will be less danger of getting into the fixed ways of teachers who have no outside contacts. It will give us some of the advantages of a mother house without the loss of independence which characterises our Institute.”

We are indeed standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.

Current Ursuline Schools                             Founded