Sr Ethel

It would be very easy to assume that Sr Ethel was Irish; she was born in Ireland, as was her father, William Henry Johnston. However, William spent most of his adult life in England, and Sr Ethel seems to have spent very little time in Ireland. Moreover, Ethel’s mother, Fanny Lewis Johnston, was English. Her father, Rev Edmund Antrobus, was for some years curate in Acton, Middlesex; his wife, Frances Margaret Antrobus, was from Northumberland, where her father, Prideaux John Selby, lived at Twizell House, Adderstone. Prideaux was a well-known ornithologist, and his illustrations are found on the internet today; he was also a JP and a deputy lieutenant. Twizell House was an important part of Ethel’s early life. In 1861, Prideaux Selby, by then a widower, is living there with his daughter and son-in-law Frances and Edmund Antrobus; his granddaughter and grandson-in-law, William and Fanny Johnston; their two daughters, Ethel (aged 1) and Sybil (aged 0); and two more grandchildren, siblings Thomas and Lucy Tancred. Whether all these people were living there, or whether some were just staying at the time of the census, is not clear to me. Prideaux Selby died in 1867, and in 1871, Edmund and Frances Antrobus are living at Twizell House; with them is their granddaughter, Ethel. William, Fanny and the rest of their children lived in Warwickshire, where William worked as a sub-inspector of factories. What is more interesting is that Ethel is still registered at Twizell House in 1881, still the only grandchild there. It seems possible, although I may be over-interpreting, that Ethel lived with her grandparents in Northumberland, while the rest of the family lived where William’s work took him; initially Warwickshire, later Bristol. William and Fanny had ten children, if I’ve counted correctly, so it’s not unlikely that Fanny’s parents helped their daughter out. It’s also confirmed by Edmund’s will, as he left Ethel some money in trust, whereas her siblings only received a legacy on their mother’s death, from the money left in trust to her.

Edmund Antrobus, late of Twizell House, died in 1884 at Clifton, Bristol, where William and Fanny were living. It seems that Edmund, and presumably Ethel, had moved to live with his daughter and son-in-law, possibly after his wife’s death in 1883. How easy this was for any of the family, we can only imagine, especially if Ethel had spent most of her time with her grandparents. However, these are the kinds of issues that are often lost; we can guess what might lie behind the facts, but we cannot know. Ethel continued to live with her parents after her grandfather’s death, and she is found there in 1891, with seven of her siblings, including the youngest, Cyril, aged 13. At this stage, Ethel was 31. But living with her family was not to be long term; in the mid-1890s, Ethel joined the Community of All Hallows.

Ethel Seymour Margaret Johnston was professed as a choir Sister of the Community of All Hallows on St Barnabas’ day in 1897, and by 1901 was at the Norwich Mission House, based at 14 Colegate Street; she was still there in 1911. By 1921, the Mission House had moved to Ber Street and Sr Ethel had moved with it. In this census, her work is described as ‘mission work in Pockthorpe’. The Norwich Mission House was the base for some of our activities in Norwich, but it was also where Sisters lived while they worked in different parishes. By this stage, we worked in a number of parishes. It seems that Sr Ethel was working in Pockthorpe, the parish which first invited us to work there back in the 1880s. It was a very poor parish, and would have been hard work. Over the years Sr Ethel would have lived through many events which affected the parish: some national, such as the first world war, and others local, such as the Norwich floods in 1912. The poorer areas of Norwich suffered from these floods and our Community magazine, East and West, talks of them afterwards. Some people, many of them children, were housed at the Mission House after being flooded out. By 1921, Sr Ethel was 61, and had given over 20 years of her life to working in the poorer parishes of Norwich. The picture shows her in Norwich, where she may have been collecting items for distributing amongst the poor. Quite when, and why, she moved back to the Community House, I’m not sure, but it may have been in the late 1920s. She is shown there in the 1929 electoral register, but not the earlier ones that I have seen. In 1934, Sr Margaret came out of retreat to nurse Sr Ethel through her last illness. She died on April 30^th 1934, at about 5.40pm. She had been in religion [dated from her clothing] for 39 years; her funeral took place on May 3^rd, and she was presumably buried in the CAH section of Ditchingham cemetery.

Piecing together Sr Ethel’s life involves researching facts, from both official and Community sources. It means being careful about making assumptions that are not based on fact, but it is possible to see something behind those facts, rather than a bare recital. Historical knowledge helps here, as does knowledge of the kind of work done from the Mission House, which tells me what Sr Ethel spent her time doing. Sometimes, I am lucky enough to come across something in our Archives that tells me something of the type of person a Sister was. That has not been possible with Sr Ethel. We can come up with something of her story, but we do not know her whole history. While ensuring that we do not to assume too much, we should also be aware that the heart of Sr Ethel’s life lies far beyond the facts that we have discovered. This is true for all of us; we may know facts, but are we making assumptions that are not justified by what we know?