At the time of the French
Revolution there was a great flood of Catholic
Priests and Religious escaping across the English
Channel. In the main, they were warmly welcomed -
the Revolution had unsettled the whiggish English
middle classes, and there was still a certain
amount of embarrassment about the Gordon Riots,
and anti-Catholic pogrom which had resulted in
hundreds of deaths just a dozen years earlier.
The Priests were often taken in by sympathetic
families. One Priest, Pere Louis Simon, came to
Ipswich, to the home of Mrs Margaret Wood,a
Catholic woman living in Silent Street. At that
time, an Ipswich Catholic wanting to attend Mass
had to travel to Bury, or to one of the homes of
the landed Catholic families, the Gages of
Hengrave or the Rookwoods of Stanningfield. Pere
Simon began celebrating Mass in Margaret Wood's
house in Silent Street, and continuing to do so
when she moved to Carr Street.
Ipswich, it must be said, was a staunchly
Protestant, non-conformist town; even today,
Anglican worshippers are in a minority. There was
still a certain amount of anti-Catholic
prejudice, and the Reform laws giving Catholics
equal rights were still almost 40 years away. But
eventually, the upheaval in France was over, and
Pere Simon returned to settle his affairs, and
sell a small amount of property inherited from
his family. He returned to Ipswich with the
proceeds. He would spend the money, and the rest
of his life, re-establishing a Catholic presence
in his adopted home.
He bought five acres of land on Albion Hill, part
of the heathland of what was then the eastern
outskirts of town. The Woodbridge road ran beside
it, and Pere Simon built a cottage, set back from
this road. Its neighbours were an 18th century
house to the east, and the Albion Mills to the
north and west. Inside the house, he prepared a
chapel, the first permanent home for the Blessed
Sacrament in Ipswich since the Reformation.
Eventually, when the time was right, he extended
the cottage eastwards by building a church,
dedicated as Our Lady of Grace.
In 1860, the nuns of the order of Jesus and Mary
arrived in England, from their base in Lyons. A
teaching order, they lived in the house that Pere
Simon had built, and established it as their
convent. They set up two schools on Pere Simon's
five acres of land, probably as part of the same
architectural commission as George Goldie's town
centre church of St Pancras. The Sisters would
survive and prosper, and they still live in the
house to this day.
However, survival and prosperity seemd unlikely
outcomes at the time, for the new self-confidence
of Ipswich Catholics would prove to be a little
misplaced. The other Ipswich churches had
maintained an amount of anti-Catholic feeling,
continuing to preach the 'No Popery' sermons that
had dissuaded civic dignitaries from attending
the opening of Our Lady of Grace in 1838. The
firebrand Protestant ministers whipped up a storm
that, one night in November 1862, turned into an
anti-Catholic riot.
Crowds rampaged through the streets, attacking
known Catholic businesses and homes. Their main
targets were the two churches and the convent,
which they besieged, attacking it with rocks and
iron railings. Every window in the building was
smashed. The Blessed Sacrament had been brought
from Our Lady into the relative safety of the
Convent chapel, and the community kept vigil
through a night of violence and destruction.
As is so often the
case, the attack was the catalyst for
increased warmth and toleration. The
local press denounced the actions of the
mob as a disgrace, and local dignitaries
visited the community with messages of
sympathy and support. Father Kemp became
an increasingly popular and well-known
local figure.
The School of Jesus & Mary became, in
the 20th Century, one of Ipswich's most
venerable and aspirational educational
establishments. In the 1990s it merged
with St Joseph's College on the other
side of Ipswich at Birkfield, and the
schools were demolished, to be replaced
by housing. But the convent remains, and
the nuns remain too. Mass is celebrated
every day, and on the occasions that it
forms the parish Mass then all are
welcome.
Simon Knott, July 2015
Amazon commission helps cover the running
costs of this site
