PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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After reading the Bishop of Exeter's appeal for help to relieve the spritual and moral destitution of the Three Towns, Miss Lydia Sellon, the daughter of a Naval captain, came to Devonport in 1848 and, with the helpo of a friend, set up a school in a room at Milne Place. She was described as being 'a remarkable woman, with great force of character and exceptional attainments.' So successful did it become that the following year, Bishop Henry Phillpotts visited the establishment and consecrated her as a daughter of the Church, signalling his approval to her setting up a Sisterhood that became known as the Devonport Society. During the 1840s, when a cholera epidemic was raging in the area, she erected a cholera hospital on the ground later known as Abbey Field. She gathered around her a band of Sisters of Mercy who nursed the patients with wonderful devotion, which helped to materially check the spread of the disease and to finally stamp it out. The epidemic lasted only three months but 177 patients were discharged from the hospital before it closed, compared to the 121 who died. Miss Sellon then founded the Sisterhood known as the Society of the Holy Trinity. They established the Abbey in Plymouth, a Priory near Ascot, in Berkshire, and the Sisters of Charity in London. The Abbey was dedicated to God the Father, the Priory to God the Son and the Charity to God the Holy Ghost, hence the title of the Holy Trinity adopted by the Society. Miss Sellon laid the foundation stone of St Dunstan's Abbey on October 5th 1850 and largely paid for the whole cost of the construction. The Abbey was designed by Mr William Butterfield, who was also responsible for Keble College, at Oxford University. Shunning publicity, and doing good almost by stealth, the Sisters lived within the precincts of the Abbey and carried out their work in strict seclusion, maintaining only a very restricted contact with the outside world. They vowed to devote seven hours a day to prayer and meditation amid a life of Spartan simplicity and severity. They conducted a small school and another part of the building was used as a penitentiary.
The garden of St Dunstan's Abbey, Plymouth. During the Crimean War the Abbey was large enough to send a number of Sisters to help Florence Nightingale in her task of nursing the wounded. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, the numbers had dwindled and there were only two Sisters at the time closure was announced on November 9th 1905. The aged Lady Superior was at that time lying ill at the Priory in Berkshire. The year before, the Sisters of Charity had been closed following the death of the last remaining Sister. The surviving Sisters were transferred to the Priory and the sale of the buildings and grounds was placed in the hands of Mr J M Andrew, auctioneer, of Princess Square, Plymouth. It was hoped in the first instance to find a purchaser who would maintain the buildings, which included a small chapel overlooking Victoria Park, and the three acres of grounds as a religious institution. Failing that, it would be offered for housing. Thanks to the efforts of the Vicar of St Peter's at that time, the Reverend Downton, the Community of St Mary the Virgin at Wantage, set up a school on the site, which they continued to run until after the Second World War. With closure threatening once again, it was down to one man, a parent-governor by the name of Mr Harold Gambrell, who in September 1956 re-launched it as an Independent Church of England School for Girls. Closure did evtnually come, however, in the 1990s, when the school moved to larger premises within the old Royal Naval Hospital complex, now known as The Millfields. The School amalgamated with Plymouth College on September 1st 2004. Finally, the last two Sisters of the Society of the Holy Trinity died during 2004 at the Ascot Priory. Sister Rosemary died on January 16th and the Mother Superior, Cecilia, died on February 12th.
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