The Catholic Church in Aberystwyth during WWII ~ part one

The Daughters of The Holy Spirit and the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul 

The Catholic Church in Aberystwyth and Wales more generally has been perceived as a religion which was foreign, and this certainly was still the case when war broke out in 1939. So, what were the experiences, reality, and role of this foreign perceived religion during the course of the war at home in Aberystwyth? Did the war and Catholic evacuees change this drastically or did life for the Catholic Church in Aberystwyth continue on as normal? These questions will be considered in a series of blog posts, the first will focus on two female Catholic religious orders who were present in Aberystwyth during the war, those being the Daughters of the Holy Spirit (D.H.S) and the Sisters of Charity of St   Vincent de Paul.

The D.H.S, a religious order of teaching nuns who had originally arrived in Aberystwyth from Brittany in 1903 and who were based on Llanbadarn Road in Aberystwyth from 1922 onwards, were impacted by many events which unfolded during the war because of the transnational nature of their community. From the outset of the war their religious community was closely affected, such as in the case of an American nun, Sister Adéle Emilienne who was meant to be a passenger on the SS Athenia, only escaping the torpedoing of the passenger ship on the 3rd of September 1939 due to travel delays. As well as the Polish sisters in their community, such as Sister Agnés Marcelle who replaced Sr. Emilienne in Aberystwyth, being worried and concerned for the harm that their fellow countrymen and women were facing at home in Poland. 

This religious community was also cut off from their motherhouse in Brittany when France fell and the armistice of Compiégne was signed by the French in June 1940. This led to many letters written from the community in Aberystwyth to the motherhouse being returned to them, which in turn caused great distress and worry amongst the nuns in Aberystwyth as they were unsure of the fate of their fellow sisters in France. Other than a few messages in 1943 that the sisters received via the Red Cross from their motherhouse in Brittany, they did not hear directly from them for four years until Brittany was liberated in 1944 and Sister St. Melaine, their Mother Superior at the time was able to send them a letter to inform them of this great news.

During the war, whilst many sisters in the community were cut off from their own countries and from their motherhouse, they offered support to those too which were far from home because of the impacts of the war. Either through being able to offer a place to stay for the duration of the war to some of the Ursuline Sisters, a Catholic female religious order from Brentwood or through knitting warm gloves and other items of clothing for the young children evacuated from Liverpool to Aberystwyth in 1940.

Other evacuations to Aberystwyth temporarily changed the landscape of the Catholic Church there. This was the case with the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul and the girls under their charge between the ages of 15 and 17 at their approved school, St John’s in Gravelly Hill, in Birmingham who were evacuated to Aberystwyth in 1940. The building they were evacuated to was Plynlymon on Victoria Terrace which was equipped for forty girls and seven staff according to an inspection by the Children’s Branch of the Home Office in 1939. This building which faced out onto the Irish Sea was a safe place for the sisters and the girls under their care to see out the war away from Birmingham, which was severely bombed during the war. They remained in this building on the seafront until the 28th of August 1945 when the sisters and their girls left Aberystwyth on the 10 o’clock train to Birmingham. During this time the sisters negotiated an erection of an air raid shelter for them and the girls under their care near Plynlymon, these negotiations however took from the 5th of January 1942 until the 23rd of June 1943 before they could begin erecting the shelter.

Plynlymon Boarding Residence, c. 1900. Used with permission of Archifdy Ceredigion Archives.

 

The girls under the care of the sisters also performed two operatic sketches, one Operetta which was performed for two evenings at Plynlymon House in July 1941 and the other being a performance of Columbus in a Merry Key, a comedic opera which was composed originally by Charles West and premiered in London in 1895. This comedic opera was performed for 3 nights between the 22nd and 24th of February 1943 at the Kings Hall, which was the local entertainments hall in the area from 1934, when it was built. These three nights at the Kings Hall raised £117 for both war charities and general church funds. The entrance fee was only two pence, so it suggests that the opera must have been a great success to be able to raise such an amount. A comedy opera was no doubt an escape for a couple of hours for local people from the wartime conditions and worries about their loved ones which were away fighting on the front lines.

 

Programme Cover for the comedic opera, Columbus in a Merry Key, performed by the Plynlymon Girls, photo taken with permission of the Archifdy Ceredigion Archives.

It’s clear therefore that during the war that the presence of Catholicism grew in Aberystwyth, be that because of the evacuation of Catholic religious nuns, such as the Ursuline Sisters and the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul or because of the operas put on for the public by the Plynlymon Girls. The war caused many Catholics in Aberystwyth to be disconnected and unable to go home, be that by the physical movement that evacuations there required for their safety, or the lack of correspondence and knowledge that many sisters in the D.H.S had concerning the fate of their motherhouse or friends and family in their respective countries of origin. These religious sisters and the Plynlymon girls provided relief to evacuees and locals be that through laughter or by their warm hand knitted clothing.

Blog by Conor Brockbank

 

Sources:

ABY/X/39/3 Columbus in a Merry Key Programme, Archifdy Ceredigion Archives.

ADX/412/9 Promotional Brochure for the Plynlymon Boarding Residence, Victoria (Marine) Terrace, Aberystwyth. Showing rates and including photographs of several public rooms. N.d. (c. 1900), Archifdy Ceredigion Archives.

Blatt, J. ‘The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments: Introduction,’ Historical Reflections/ Réflexions Historiques, 22 (Winter 1996): 1-10.

Davies, A.M. D.H.S, Led by the Spirit. Daughters of the Holy Spirit in England and Wales 1902-1952. Bedford, 2004.

Egan, J. A Century of Service in Wales. The Story of the Daughters of the Holy Spirit 1902-2002. Abergavenny, 2005.

Heck, T. ‘The Operatic Christopher Columbus: Three Hundred Years of Musical Mythology,’ Annali d’Italianistica, 10 (1992): 236-278.

Hughes, T.O. ‘“No Longer Will We Call Ourselves Catholics in Wales but Welsh Catholics”: Roman Catholicism, The Welsh Language and Welsh National Identity in the Twentieth Century,’ The Welsh History Review, 20 (2000): 336-365.

Kiely, M.B. Annals of the Parish of our Lady of the Angels and St Winefride. Aberystwyth, 1973.

Kiely, M.B. Our Lady of the Angels and St Winefride, Aberystwyth: Centenary 1874-1974. Aberystwyth, 1974.

Miller, N. War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II. Oxford, 1996.

Ray, J. The Night Blitz: 1940-1941. London, 1996.

Various letters between 1939 and 1945 were consulted that are held in the Daughters of Charity British Province Archives.

https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/23283/

http://www.childrenshomes.org.uk/ErdingtonAS/