‘Age quod agis’ the motto of Our Lady’s Convent School translates to “Whatever you do, do it well “.
The first picture show the graves of the Sisters of Mercy who have died while serving at Abingdon.
The Sisters of Mercy first came to Abingdon in 1860. There was a great need at the time to educate the children of Catholic familes. Back then there was no Roman Catholic church, but with help from people like Sir George Bowyer , who wanted to see the Roman Catholic faith re-established in his local town Abingdon, things were happening. Not everybody liked the nuns coming to Abingdon, but Sir George gave them the land for a convent. People sang that for Sir George “There is no place like Rome.”
But the introduction of a community of nuns dedicated to “Our Lady of Abingdon” was also the re-continuation of the monastic tradition of Abingdon Abbey. The first convent building (this one facing Oxford Road) was built in 1862 with an entrance from Oxford Road.
It was called “Our Lady’s Convent.”
The triangle of land between Oxford Road, Radley Road, and St Johns Road was soon to see Our Lady and St Edmunds Church dedicated in 1865. In the same area St Edmunds School was built for children in the parish. The triangle was like a Catholic enclave. In those days the Sisters sometimes got pelted with eggs by some citizens of Abingdon who saw the nuns as a threat.
But this new threat, energised the established church, and non-conformist churches who also began to set up schools for local children. The work of the Sisters of Mercy with the poor was also a leading example.
Today the Convent School is a successful fee paying school. St Edmunds primary school has moved to a modern site on the other side of the Radley Road, allowing the Convent to continue to build and expand, and now rated one of the top schools in Oxfordshire. In 1925 this poem was written in the Convent School year book:
Dear Abingdon, scene of our happiest days,
Dear Alma Mater, where we’ve learnt to gain
That true success, which lies not in the maze
Of earthly praise, nor yet of worldly fame,
But in our purpose firm, and effort strong
To put our best into the work we do;
To strive for right, and ever shun the wrong,
To be not useless dolls, but women true…
My mother Marie Edith ANWYL, born 1897, was a non-paying boarder from the age of 5 – 16 because her parents were too poor to feed their eleven children. All her life she spoke of the kindness and generosity of the nuns. She passed the Oxford Senior Exam which was a high standard of education for a woman in those days. Thanks from me too.
Anne Topping, her eldest daughter
Thank you Sister Mary and the Reverend Mother and all the other sisters that cared for myself, sisters Susanna and Christina, in the 1966 onward. The movies the tuck shop my pet guinni pig my favourite language Latin,the midnight feasts, will always be in my heart and mind for allways.
God bless you all
Denise Roe
War time rationing hunger, fear of the dark because the toilets were a long way from the dormitories, and an angry nun who wrapped my knuckles with a ruler are my earliest memories of this school – not happy memories I’m afraid. An excellent education and lessons in survival and independence at age six though.
I have discovered today that my father aged 6 and my uncle aged 7 were boarding here in 1921. Can anybody tell me what sort of a place it was in 1921, and how young were the youngest, does anybody know? I believe my father and his brother may have first gone there when they were as young as 2 and 3.