Sr Winifred

We’ve had several Sisters over the years who have used the name ‘Winifred’; two who have been simply Winifred as well as Sr Winifred Edith, Sr Winifred Jane and Sr Winifred Mary. Some of you may well remember Sr Winifred Edith, the second Sr Winifred and Sr Winifred Mary; for those of you who have never come across her, Sr Winifred Jane left. Today, I want to introduce you to the first Sr Winifred. Winifred Eleanor Grey Clarke was the oldest child of William and Sophia Clarke. William was a priest, who seems to have moved parish regularly, having been based at Wingham, Kent in 1871, Hook, Surrey in 1881 and Rumburgh, Suffolk in 1891. Sophia was nearly twenty years younger than William, who was a widower when he married her in 1866. William and Sophia had four children: Winifred, born in 1868, was followed by two boy,: Leycester Annand Grey Clarke and John Grey Clarke, both born in the early 1870s. A second daughter, Dorothy M G Clarke, was born in 1882.

In 1881, Winifred, aged 12, was away at school in Hampshire; both the brothers were still at home, although I assume they may well have gone away to school at some point. By 1891, both Leycester and John were scholars at Jesus College, Oxford; Dorothy, aged 9, was being educated at home; Winifred was staying with her maternal aunt and her family in Bradford. What drew Winifred to the Community is uncertain, although I assume she came to know us once her father moved to Suffolk. She was clothed in 1893, and professed on St Thomas Day in 1895, in her mid-twenties. By 1901, she was working at the Norwich Mission House in Colegate, one of several Sisters living there; she was still there in 1911. Sisters at the Mission House worked in parishes in Norwich, often the poorer parishes; there was also a Nursery based at the Colegate house, allowing mothers to work and older siblings to go to school. Quite where Sr Winifred worked, I do not know, as the census does not give that detail. I do know that a nurse was employed, also living in the Mission House. Elizabeth Dredge spent many years as a parish nurse alongside the Community, and her contribution to our work and to the poor of Norwich must have been invaluable. While some of the Sisters also had nursing experience, there is no evidence that this is the case for Sr Winifred, and I assume that she did parish work, unless she worked directly in the Nursery.

But her story does give warning as to how much dependence to put on data from the Census. There is nothing in any census to suggest that Sr Winifred spent any time at Ditchingham. In 1921, she is registered at her brother’s house in Wimbledon. Her occupation is down as Sister of Mercy, doing rescue work in St Augustine’s, Norwich. St Augustine’s was a refuge the Sisters ran for girls and women; it was a half-way house before attending a House of Mercy, which trained fallen women in domestic service. All those at the Ditchingham House of Mercy came from St Augustine’s, but the refuge also sent girls to other institutions. Mostly, they were at the refuge for only weeks or months, before spending two years in our House of Mercy; I’m assuming the time span was similar for other institutions. The work at St Augustine’s would have been hard. While different from the work at the Mission House, there was some overlap, as we know from Sr Marianna’s story (see blog, February 3rd 2025). Sr Marianna had worked in Greyfriar’s Lodge (an earlier name for St Augustine’s) before moving to the Mission House as she got drawn in to work in the parish of St John’s, Timberhill, where she had looked for girls in need of help. Whether Sr Winifred was one of those who went out in the streets of Norwich, or whether she was based at the house (or, indeed, whether there was a strict definition between the two) again I do not know. It seems she stayed at St Augustine’s, as she is still based there in the 1939 register, one of only three Sisters there.

So from census data it does seem that Sr Winifred spent her Community life in Norwich. But the census is not all we have. The electoral register is also helpful and for many years between 1919 and 1929 she appears on the roll at the Community House, Ditchingham. Crucially, not every year, although I may not have noted each year; and I do not have as much data for Norwich electoral rolls. Nevertheless, it is clear that, despite what the census says, Sr Winifred did spend some time at Ditchingham, although she still seems to have spent much of her Community life in Norwich. Quite how easy it would have been returning to Ditchingham after years in Norwich, I am not sure, although I would think that Sisters based in houses elsewhere may well have stayed at Ditchingham from time to time. I would think it likely that she also returned there towards the end of her life, although I could be wrong. Sr Winifred died on January 5th 1944, aged 75, after 51 years in religion. The Community diary says that she passed away peacefully. She had been failing for the last year but she suffered no pain before she died. Her funeral was on Saturday January 8th, which was a fine day. Her brother from London came down for the funeral.

Sr Winifred’s fifty years in Community would have seen a great deal of change, both in society and in the Community. When she joined the Community, Queen Victoria was on the throne; she died only a few years before Elizabeth II ascended. She was clothed when M. Adele was leading the Community; she died under M. Flora, having seen several different Sisters become Superior. The Community and its’ work would have changed and developed under different leadership, changing needs and different Sisters. She would have seen the deaths of many of those whom she first knew, and the coming of many much younger Sisters. How well she coped with these changes, I do not know. So often, we have only the facts of a Sister’s story. But whether she coped with change well or badly, she is to be honoured for continuing within the Community throughout shifting circumstances. 

[Picture: alley looking towards Colegate, Norwich]