Sr Mabel

In researching the history of our Sisters, and of their wider family, I often come across interesting connections, such as those in Sr Mabel’s family. Born in 1877, Mabel Winifred Shaw was the ninth of thirteen children of Frederick and Elizabeth Shaw, who married in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1863. Frederick seems to have moved and changed occupation regularly. Based in Newcastle until 1866, between 1867 and 1871, he was at Harton, Durham, when in 1871 he worked as a seed crusher. By 1873, he is at Usworth, near Chester-le-Street, where in 1881 he is working as a paint and colour maker. Here Mabel was born, along with 7 of her siblings. By 1891, Frederick is back near Newcastle, at Paradise House, Paradise West Pit, Benwell, where his occupation is given as cement manufacturer. Seven of the children are also living there, with the oldest, Frederick, working as a cement agent, presumably with his father. But the two oldest daughters, Anna and Katherine, are working as schoolteachers in Shotley Field, Northumberland. Registered with them are their four youngest sisters, including Mabel, aged 13. I assume that they are there to be educated; in 1881, a governess had been employed by the family, so it is possible that by 1891, it was thought that their sisters would give the younger girls the education they needed.

By 1901, the family had scattered further. Frederick and Elizabeth are living in Tynemouth with only three of their children, including Thomas, who is a builder’s merchant. As Frederick is listed as a builder’s merchant’s clerk, this implies that they were working together, which is confirmed by a notice in The Gazette in 1907, announcing the retirement of Frederick Shaw from the firm The Tynemouth Slating Co. This retirement dissolves the firm, and his partners, three of Frederick’s sons, will carry on the business in partnership. Frederick died the next year, and in 1911 we find Elizabeth living with her two youngest daughters. She died in 1913. What happened to all the siblings? It seems they all needed an occupation, and few, if any, of the girls married.

By 1901, Anna is working as a church worker, and in 1911 is living in Durham as a deaconess, later working in a parish in Gateshead.  Katherine continued as a teacher, and by 1911 was headmistress of a private school in Hartlepool; Eliza, born in 1870, became a music teacher, although in 1921, she is a church worker. I cannot find anything much about two other sisters, Mary and Helen. Of the three youngest sisters, by 1939, Edith was also a deaconess, and was living in Gateshead. Cecily became a nurse, and in 1921 was working for a family in Norfolk. She later moved to West Runton, on the north Norfolk coast, where she died in 1932. The youngest sibling, Alison, was working as a secretary for the Church Missionary Society in Surrey in 1921; soon after, she moved to Norfolk, where she lived with Cecily. By 1939, she had left Norfolk to take a post as a House Mistress in a boarding school in Lincolnshire, where she died in 1944.

The four brothers all seem to have stayed in the North of England. Three, Frederick, Thomas and Richard, were partners in the slating company mentioned above. The fourth brother, James, was an architect’s clerk in 1901, but by 1911 had become an artificial stone manufacturer, slater; an occupation very similar to his brothers. But it is the occupations of the sisters that interests me. While only Mabel joined a religious community, two other sisters became deaconesses, another became a church worker, and Alison, at one point, worked for a missionary society. It implies something about the faith of the family, and the way their Christian faith may have been encouraged as they were growing up. While we cannot make assumptions without evidence, I have found newspaper advertisements to show that both Frederick and Elizabeth were active in the church they attended during their early married life.

Whether Sr Mabel’s faith was nurtured during her early years or not, something led her to join the Community of All Hallows. I know of no obvious connection with Norfolk at the point she joined us, nor do I know what she did before joining, as I cannot find her in the 1901 census. She joined the Community in around 1903, and was professed as a lay Sister in 1906. In 1911, she was working in the House of Mercy under Sr Emmeline. By 1921, she had moved and was working at the School. But we also know that Sr Mabel was one of the Sisters who worked in Canada, and she presumably went out there after the 1911 census, although I do not have the date. But along with Sr Eileen, she was one of the last Sisters in Canada, and records show that she returned in 1920, arriving at Liverpool on the 13^th August.

Her last country of occupation had been Canada, and her future address was All Hallows, Ditchingham. We know that this is when the Community left Canada, so this confirms Sr Mabel and Sr Eileen as the last two Sisters present. By 1939, Sr Mabel was at the Community House, and in her later years, she went blind; M. Mary notes that she was ‘blind and very gentle’. She could hardly see for the last ten years of her life, and was confined to her bed for several months before her death in August 1957. The Community Diary notes that she was a good religious and never complained.  The faith of Sr Mabel and her sisters will have had an impact that goes far beyond our remembrance of them.  

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