Relationship between St. Monica's and the Village of Spetisbury
The Poor School
Very little is known of this establishment. It was started following a request from the Bishop, Dr. Collingridge; Sister Mary Salome Wylie mentions that “the community also opened a poor school to care for local day girls.” and the Chronicle says, “the poor-school was opened for the honour and glory of God on S. Elisabeth’s Day, in July 1822, with nine poor girls.”
Employment
The Priory did not employ many servants but those that they did were likely to have come from the village of Spetisbury. From the various censuses it is possible to work out only those servants who were actually living at the Priory.
In 1841 there were two servants living in the convent, Elizabeth Lumery aged 23 and Elizabeth Foyle aged 18. The Lamport/Lamperd family were also employed there but living in the Thatched Cottage next to the cemetery; Henry Lamport aged 40, a widower, as a gardener, his son Joseph aged 14, also a gardener and his daughter Mary aged 16 as a servant to the priests.
A previous gardener at the Priory, John Norford, a member of a Catholic family living at Blandford St. Mary (a village about 3 miles away), was reported in the local press as dropping down dead as he was walking home across the fields in December 1828. He was 59 years old and the coroner’s report gave the cause of death as “visitation of God”.
In 1851 there were only two servants, Henry Lamport aged 57 living in the Thatched Cottage and employed as a servant and Joseph Lamport aged 23, employed as a gardener. In 1861 (Appendix 20) again there were only two male servants, Thomas Cox aged 35 and Richard Forsythe aged 16.
However, it is likely that the nuns also employed other villagers who were living in their own homes. In the 1851 census there are a surprising number of women in the village described as “laundress” or “former laundress” who are also found to be regular communicants at the Catholic Church. (Appendix 21) These women could well have been working at the convent.
According to Freda Neale, Thomas Rackett, the rector of the Anglican Church in the village, stated that the nuns “with the zeal to make proselytes which is inseparable from Catholics” were taking villagers as servants and trying to convert them.
The Church
Spetisbury was a small village. In 1800 there were only 100 houses and a population of 336 and in 1851 there were 147 houses and a population of 660. Nevertheless, there were four churches fighting for the allegiance of its people. Apart from the Anglican church of St. John the Baptist and the Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, there were both an Independent Church and a Primitive Methodist Church. Hunts Directory of 1851 says, “There are chapels for Independents and Methodists, and the Roman Catholics have here a convent.”
Reverend Thomas Rackett (1756-1840)
Thomas Rackett was the Anglican Rector of Spetisbury and Charlton Marshall for 59 years (1781-1840) and during the last 40 years of his incumbency the nuns were present at St. Monica’s and seemed to have presented the Rev. Rackett with a few problems. Rackett was a musician, scientist, writer and traveller, a member of the Linnaean, Antiquarian and Royal Societies, contributed to Hutchins History of Dorset and studied every branch of natural history and natural philosophy. In other words he was more antiquarian and naturalist than parson. “Many of the great scientists & artists of the day were his friends, and his activities did not make him beloved of the superstitious people of a Dorset village, who were still convinced that the probings of Man into Nature could not be the Will of God and it is probable that the people of the two villages would have preferred a less brilliant man as the leader of their churches.”
The personal relationships between the Rackett family and the community at St. Monica’s seems to have been very good. When the prioress, Mary Benedict Stonor died in May 1814, Sister Mary Joseph Tunstall wrote to Mrs Rackett to inform her of the news. (Appendix 22) She addressed her as “My very Dear Friend” and went on to say “The friendship that has ever Subsisted between You and Our Venerable Mother Mary Benedict Stonor Obliges me to perform the painful task of saying She Died Yesterday Morning soon after ten ……. She realy (sic) Loved You, always pleased with your Constant Attentions to her … if We your remaining Friends can say the same …. would grieve you heard of this Event from anyone but our selves. Mension (sic) us with Sincere regards to Our respected friends Mr & Miss Rackett.” She also mentioned that “these days of Joy … we are all sensible of happy & Unlooked for Blessings but the painfull Subject of this Latter prevents my Chating (sic) on the pleasing events” which must have been a reference to the fall of Napoleon the previous month. She asked after Mrs Rackett’s health “hope my dear Mrs Rackett you are tolerably well” and asked to be remembered to her sister “mension Us with Constant regards to Yr Amiable Sr Mrs Baker”. This same sister, Jane Baker, in a letter to Mrs Rackett sometime before 1812, asked to be remembered to “my favourite Nuns, have you seen Sister Agnes and Sister Mary Clare lately.”
However, some of the villagers of Spetisbury must have regarded the nuns with greater suspicion. Towards the end of 1828 the Bishop of Bristol wrote to Thomas Rackett “that there is a great complaint amongst your Parishioners at Charlton and Spettisbury that you are never at home, and that your Curate lives at Blandford, that all the children attend at a large Meeting house as there is no Church School in the Parish, & that many converts are made to the Nunnery and Catholic Chapel” and in another letter ten days later he wrote “Permit me to suggest the propriety of making every exertion to counteract the baneful influence of the Roman Catholic Religion in your neighbourhood and of course encouraging the children of the Dissenters as much as possible to attend your church.” He wrote again at the beginning of 1829 “It is alleged in a letter which I have recently received ‘That you scarcely ever reside, that there is no church school & that a large Catholic Church is now building in your Parish’ etc.” (Appendix 23)
Finally, in March 1829 Thomas Rackett’s comprehensive interests and various extra-parochial activities brought on him the charge, in the House of Lords, of neglecting his parish. The Marquis of Lansdowne, who supported Catholic emancipation, national education and abolition of the slave trade, denounced Rackett to Parliament for neglecting his parish duties. Lansdowne accused him of non-residence in the parish and of negligence in allowing the Augustinian nuns to entice members of the protestant congregation into their faith. The report in The Times on March 20th noted “there had been for many years a nunnery, in which there were a great number of Catholic ladies remarkable for their zeal for the religion they professed……. during the whole of that time the nunnery existed, though the living worth 750L a year, there had never been a resident clergyman there……. the living at Spettisbury, of which the rector had resided in London for 30 years, during which time there had not been even a resident curate in the place. Now, if the Catholic religion had increased there, let him not hear it said that it was owing to the encroaching spirit of that religion, but let it be attributed to the real cause – the want of efficient discharge of clerical duties on the spot by a resident clergyman.” (Appendix24)
Two days later Thomas Rackett wrote to the Bishop in an attempt to refute these charges. “I positively assert that I have resided in my Rectorial house at Spettisbury every year during the last 40 years, although I will readily admit that some circumstances of a private domestic nature have at various times during that period occasioned my temporary absence beyond the period allowed by Law” …. “With respect to the culpable negligence with which I am accused as respecting the Convent of Augustine Nuns in Spettisbury, I will admit, with his Lordship the great respectability of the members of that religious establishment. I will also admit their zeal, for there are at this moment preparations making for enlarging their Chapel. I beg however to call your Lordship’s attention to the following facts. The number of families in S. is 108 out of which 5 or 3 of the families are connected with the Convent, and were always so. There remain then 2 families and 6 individuals who have been induced to embrace the C. religion. So much for the increase of Catholics in Spettisbury.”
The length of absence allowed each year from a parish seems to have been a total of 3 months and Rackett spent much of his time in his house at King Street, Covent Garden, London.
The Bishop seems to have been satisfied with Rackett’s reply but the signature of the curate John Cooke does appear very frequently in the parish registers. John Hutchins, to whose History of Dorset Thomas Rackett contributed, wrote of him “With all his scientific labours, Mr. Rackett seems never to have neglected his parochial duties, though at one time through misrepresentation some undeserved odium rested upon him on account of his alleged non-residence.”
The Church of the Immaculate Conception
A register of christenings, marriages and burials, started by the Rev. Joseph Lee, (a Chaplain at St. Monica’s), between 1837 and 1857 still exists. There are 92 baptisms between 1837 and 1857. Many of the surnames are common Dorset names but some are obviously of Irish extraction. For instance, two families of Irish hawkers, the Figgs and the Forsyths, who were living in Blandford at that time, baptised many children during these years. There were also two families of Irish labourers, the Murphys and the Neales, living in Spetisbury. Twenty-five of the baptisms were described as being of “converts”. Among these were names such as Fripp, Loader and Knight, all families long established in Spetisbury and the immediate area. Perhaps Thomas Rackett was not really aware of how popular the Roman Catholic religion really was!
There were four marriages in the chapel between 1844 and 1849 (all with Irish names) and thirty burials between 1840 and 1854 of which 15 were villagers (7 of them young children).
Confirmation Lists
The register also contains lists of children confirmed at the chapel. On May 30 1843 the following were confirmed.
FIGG Mary Anne Agnes of Blandford
FIGG Catherine Lucy of Blandford
FIGG Richard Peter of Blandford
STEVENS Elizabeth Mary Anne of Spetisbury
On October 21st 1853 the following were confirmed:
POWELL Anna Maria Stanislaus
BADGER Maria Jane Maria Magdalena
FRAPPEL Frances Maria Teresa
POPE Margaret Maria Agnes
NEALE Ellena Maria Aloysia
STEVENS Thomas
It is not known if all the girls were school boarders or whether they were local children. The last two were certainly local children, Ellena being the daughter of an Irish farm labourer and Thomas the son of the local blacksmith.
On August 28th 1854 another 17 candidates for confirmation were presented. These are certainly nearly all local children (apart from Winifred Fitzgerald who was a boarder). St. Monica’s was certainly riding high in the popularity stakes as we find some of these local girls choosing Monica as one of their confirmation names.
HOOPER Henry Joseph
LOADER William Thomas
SYMES Michael Joseph
SYMES James Joseph
COX Thomas Joseph
COWARD William Peter
HOOPER Elizabeth Eliza Philomena
LOADER Elizabeth Eliza Maria
SYMES Louisa Monica Rosa
SYMES Sarah Maria Monica
SAVRIN Susannah Maria
KNIGHT Jane Maria Monica
FRIPP Jane Monica
COX Catherine Monica Rosa
FITZGERALD Winifred Maria Aloysia
BROOMHALL Sarah Maria Ellena
LAMPERD Mary Anne Monica Ellena
The Society of the Children of Mary
In 1856 “S. Mary Clare and S. Teresa Bernard introduced the Society of the Children of Mary into the school. Eight members were received on 8th May followed by many others and also from outside the school.”
This pious confraternity, dedicated to Mary Immaculate, was made up of young girls and its principal end, which the members proposed to themselves, was to love and serve the Immaculate Heart of Mary, by imitating her virtues, above all her fortitude and spotless purity. To be apostles in the world these Children of Mary are expected by their rules to practise many virtues, but it is still the lily of Mary's spotlessness which must shine pre-eminent, hence their love for her Immaculate Conception. Their devotion to the Heart of Jesus prompts the making of vestments and other altar requirements for poor churches and distant missions. This society, which still exists, would have involved study and devotion but also, at special times, the procession with a statue of Mary around the grounds of the priory, which must have had great appeal for the children.
Easter Communicants
The Rev. Joseph Lee also started a list of Easter Communicants at St. Monica’s in 1840 which showed an average number of 44 people taking Mass at Easter between 1840 and 1853. Among these were many local Spetisbury names; Horlock, Fripp, Gallop, Gooby, Stevens, Symes, Cox, Loader, Knight.