By Alice Millard, Archivist
This blog will explore the lives of some of the girls and women of St Margaret’s Convent through their archive. The Sisters of St Margaret were originally founded to nurse the poor and sick. They also ran an orphanage and a school called St Agnes’ and St Michael’s, to which fee-paying parents could send their children. The intake to the school was primarily girls, but some boys were also looked after in the orphanage. Many St Margaret’s pupils grew up to lead successful and independent lives, flying in the face of more conventional paths for women during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Tricky beginnings
The Society of St Margaret was established in 1855 as an Anglican religious community. Formal religious communities had not been a significant part of the religious landscape of England since the 1530s due to their association with Catholicism. St Margaret’s developed as part of the growing support for Anglican religious communities in England which involved the convent’s founder, Rev John Mason Neale, the Warden of Sackville College in East Grinstead. Many saw this movement as an unwelcome shift from Protestantism towards Catholicism.
The Society’s convent was built in 1865, less than one mile from Sackville College. Considering the resistance to the Society, the convent was a major achievement. Eight years previously, Rev Neale and several Sisters had been assailed at a funeral for Sister Amy Scobell (formerly Emily Ann). Sister Amy had joined the Society just six weeks before her death from scarlet fever aged 30. Toward the end of the service, ill feeling spilled over resulting in a skirmish which deprived Rev Neale of his gown and cap – symbols of Catholicism.
Sister Amy Scobell (formerly Emily Ann)
Sister Amy’s father, Rev John Scobell (a firmly Anglican priest), utilised the newspapers to discredit Rev Neale. Reports emerged that Neale had ‘clandestinely’ gained a confession from Sister Amy. Excerpts from their letters were published alongside Scobell’s own account, building a picture of a young woman who had been hoodwinked into deserting her family.
“One of the sisterhood first meets her [Emily Ann] on an errand of charity at the bedside of a sick person… and, at the fitting opportunity, the Rev Mr Neale is introduced on the stage. Miss Scobell, who, with a weak body, and a not very strong intellect, has always possessed a morbid imagination,… is prevailed upon to make confession to Mr Neale… and she renders to him the strictest obedience” – The Hull Packet, 15 Jan 1858
It is difficult to conclude whether Emily, Sister Amy, made this decision of her own accord. Perhaps there was an element of pressure, but as a young woman living in the often oppressive era of the 1850s, she could have just as likely seen this as an opportunity for an independent life in the company of like-minded women.
Dr Kathleen Olga Vaughan
After Sister Amy’s death and prior to the convent being built, the Society established St Agnes’ school. Lessons included basic arithmetic, grammar, music, sewing and religious teachings. This was a standard approach, designed to prepare young girls for household duties, domestic service, or religious life. An early pupil was Kathleen Vaughan.
Kathleen was born in 1869 in St Leonards, East Sussex, to Rev Charles and Jane Vaughan and entered the school in 1881. She would go on to lead a remarkable life far different to one confined to a home or convent.
After leaving St Agnes in 1888, Kathleen attended University College Bangor and Bedford College in London studying physics, biology, and chemistry. This enabled her to undertake an intermediate medical degree in Jan 1898 at London School of Medicine, and she earned a Bachelor of Medicine in 1900. Kathleen became a medical doctor at the age of 31. Her younger sister Janet would also earn a Bachelor of Surgery in 1905, and their sister Eleanor became a hospital nurse.
Kathleen practiced in the field of obstetrics in Egypt, Kashmir and colonial India. Initially, she worked at the new Bala Hisar Nursing Home in Mussoorie, then, at the Diamond Jubilee Zenana Hospital in Kashmir, the region’s first women-only medical facility. The caring vocation of the Sisters evidently had an influence, as Kathleen was not the only pupil to choose a career in healthcare.
Dulcie Estelle Phibbs
Just as Kathleen was leaving St Agnes’, a child named Dulcie Estelle Phibbs was born in Killarney in 1888. Youngest daughter of Rose and Col. William Phibbs, Dulcie was one of the many children who resided permanently at St Margaret’s. Dulcie’s father William died before her birth whilst serving in Madras, India. Her mother Rose may have suffered from poor mental health and remained in rest homes for the remainder of her life. Evidently, Dulcie’s status was seen as akin to that of an orphan.
Yet, the sadness whichtinged Dulcie’s early life did not hold her back. After spending her childhood and adolescence with the Sisters, Dulcie left St Margaret’s in 1906 aged 18. By 1911 she was living and working at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton. The Register of Nurses (available on Ancestry) shows Dulcie completed her nursing training between 1912 and 1915 at St George’s Hospital, London.
Of course, this means that whilst Dulcie was grappling with her finishing her studies, the First World War had been underway for several months. She left St George’s in May 1916, and the following month joined Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (later Royal Army Nursing Corps), with whom she stayed until March 1919. She served as a staff nurse in France, Italy and Salonika during the war, providing essential nursing care for military personnel near the front lines. After the war, she gained a position at the East London Hospital for Children as a sick nurse.
You may also wonder who the little boy in the photo is. He was Gilbert Lee Townshend Drummond-Hay. Gilbert’s mother, Harriet, died in 1890 when he was just a year old. And, like Dulcie, he did not have parents to care for him.
Isobell and Alfred Couper
As we’ve seen, it wasn’t just girls who resided with or were educated by the Sisters at St Margaret’s. In the collection, there is a heartrending document in which a mother signs away guardianship of her baby boy.
This handwritten record, signed by 21-year-old Isobell Russell Couper, an unmarried New Zealander, dates from 28 March 1887. It records little aside from her baby’s birth date (3 March 1887) and that she was recently of Camden Town.
At a time of little state support for unmarried mothers, the surrendering of children to church organisations was commonplace.
Alfred remained in the care of the Sisters for a little while, before entering the navy as an older boy. He remained a sailor until his retirement and never changed his name.
These are just some of the remarkable lives moulded by the Convent of St Margaret’s. From the archives, we learn that it was a place that girls of many backgrounds grew up and learned together. Generations lived and studied under the charge of the Sisters, and it wasn’t until 1976 that the final incarnation of the school was closed. Today, the convent is grade I listed and occupied by residents.
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