The nuns at the Priory
Ivor Slocombe reassesses the history of the Priory, and the community of Anglican nuns who lived there in the mid-19th century.
When I have led tours of Bradford on Avon, I since the old house was pulled down, there is not much of interest to see. Also it is called the Priory simply because some nuns lived there for a few years in the mid-19th century.
I now realise how wrong I have been.
The Priory was an important house in Bradford from the Middle Ages. It was originally called Besills and then Methwins after the owners. The Methuens were followed by the Tugwells and then by John Saunders. In about 1850 Tohn Saunders discovered some ornamental stonework which looked medieval and ecclesiastic so he decided to call his house The Old Priory which, in any case, sounded somewhat grander.
The Priory from the courtyard
Very little has been written about the nuns at the Priory but they do, in fact, represent an important episode in the history of Bradford.
We need to start with Priscilla Lydia Sellon. She WaS a wealthy lady who came from a naval family. When she visited Plymouth and Devonport in 1847 she was appalled by the conditions there in the poorer quarters. There was extreme poverty, mass unemployment and no facilities for the children, many of whom were orphans.
She was determined to do something about this, so got together a group of similar minded ladies.
There was always a strong religious element in the group, so Priscilla formed an Anglican community called the Sisters of Mercy. They did a huge amount of good work. They founded an orphanage for girls, set up night schools for boys and an industrial school for girls. In 1849, the area saw a very serious outbreak of cholera and Priscilla and her nuns were the mainstay in providing nursing facilities and help for the affected families.
But, despite all this good work, the nuns were controversial and were the subject of some quite vicious criticism. The main body of the Anglican church at that time was what we might call 'low church'. Then a group in Oxford, the tractarians, led by Dr Pusey, moved towards the high church' with more elaborate rituals and services which many saw as the start of a move back to Roman Catholicism. Priscilla and the nuns were very closely linked to Pusey and followed his ideas. Their 'nunnery' was the first such institution founded in the country since the Reformation and their religious observances were distinctly like those of a medieval monastery.
Priscilla and Pusey then planned the development of similar priories across the country. The first was in Bristol which they established in 1851. Then, in 1856, they came to Bradford taking a lease on the Priory. It is not clear exactly why they came here. We know the lease was paid for by Rev Edward Stuart, the very wealthy vicar of St Mary Magdalene's, Munster Square, London, who was also closely linked to Pusey. They had moved in by July 1856. The dining room was turned into a chapel with an organ and other rooms were partitioned to make cells. They were particularly welcomed by the vicar who caused the church bells to be rung to greet their arrival. In the mid 1850s Bradford was going through a deep economic depression with a great deal of unemployment and subsequent poverty. It seems likely that the vicar saw them repeating in Bradford the sort of work they had done in Plymouth. He was disappointed. By this time the Sisters had moved much more to a life of contemplation. They cut themselves off in the Priory which was ideal for such isolation and only went out to go to church. No one from the town, including the vicar, was welcomed there. The 1861 census lists five nuns at the Priory: Priscilla Sellon, Catherine Chambers, Emma Taylor, Clara Powell and Lucy Watkins (Child Hombeline). Sister Catherine was Priscilla's main assistant with responsibility for much of the administrative work. Sister Clara came from a wealthy Hampshire family and was a semi-recluse. Lucy had entered the Order in London and was particularly known for her austere asceticism. Finally Emma, who was known as Phoebe.
Two of the nuns died when they were at Bradford: Sister Harriet (the Hon Harriet Erskine, eldest daughter of Lord Erskine, Baron of Cambo) and Sister Anna. Both were buried in the new cemetery on the Holt Road, their graves being marked by a plain black cross.
There was also a seven-year-old girl, Aileen Murphy, who was born in Ireland. She was the daughter of two Irish beggars who died of cholera in Plymouth. So the Sisters adopted her as a ward. Later she went back to Ireland to live with an uncle.
Most surprising, also living at the Priory was Alice Henshaw, described as a printer's compositor, and 11 girls aged between 12 and 19, all of whom had been born in the London area. They were all described as printers compositors or printers' scholars. These were girls who came from the London orphanage established by the Sisters of Mercy, a similar order of nuns.
Most orphanages taught the girls laundry work. But this was poorly paid and Priscilla realised that when the girls left the orphanage they would not earn enough to be able to live independently. She had always been interested in printing and thought that the girls would make good compositors. She set up a printing press at Bristol and this moved with the nuns to Bradford. Dr Pusey was a prolific writer of sermons and some of these were either printed in Bradford or were set up for printing in London. Pusey was a frequent visitor to the Priory.
The religious controversy which surrounded the Sisters in Plymouth followed them to Bradford. A Protestant Association had been formed to oppose the High Church practices and any move towards Roman Catholicism. In February 1857 they held a meeting in Bradford hoping to form a branch there. The two main speakers were Paul Fosketh and James Verner who made quite vitriolic attacks on the Sisters. Fosketh described the fallacies of Rome and how they were being followed by the Tractarians. The Sisters had bound themselves by ungodly vows not to God but to a 'fellow worm'. In their establishment, wrong principles were taught, a perverted gospel and mummeries were maintained and many abominations done to the disgrace of religion and ultimately to the dishonour of God and his Holy Word. Verner also attacked the Tractarians and the Sisters who were helpers in this black business'.
The Sisters' stay in Bradford was relatively short for in 1862 they combined with the London priory and built a new house at Ascot to which they all moved
Florence Nightingale visits Bradford on Avon
There is a postscript. The nuns were responsible for perhaps the most famous lady of the age, Florence Nightingale, visiting Bradford. In 1909 the Wiltshire Times published a long interview with Tom May of Ashley. He had fought in the Crimean War, was wounded and then treated by the Florence Nightingale nurses. Having been invalided out of the army he came to live at Ashley. He recalled that one day in 1859 he was walking up Mason's Lane and met a lady he immediately recognised as Florence Nightingale. She was dressed in a sort of modified crinoline surmounted by the white banded headgear of a nurse. He spoke to her and they talked about the Crimea. He then asked her what she was doing in Bradford. She said she had come to visit the nuns at the Priory. This makes sense for some of the Sisters had gone to the Crimea to work with her.
