The House of Mercy

While I have researched many of our past Sisters, and some of those adults who had links with us, in order to give a rounded picture of our Community, it also involves those we worked with. This is a more sensitive area, as I know the Community at the time would do all they could to protect them, and their backgrounds. In telling this story of one of the residents at the House of Mercy, I will only use initials as it feels important to shield her identity, and one of our early magazines often used this method.

E was registered at the House of Mercy in 1901; aged 21, she was one of the older women at there. Born in Lowestoft, her occupation is given as laundry maid/servant. This fits with what we know about the House of Mercy, as any girl strong enough to manage the work was trained in the laundry. Working from the census data, I discovered that E was born in late 1879, and her parents were R and M; R was a general labourer in 1881 and he also had 2 older children. Ten years later, living at a different address, R is still a general labourer, and there are now seven children, not including the oldest child on the 1881 census who is not registered there in 1891. Apart from E and her younger sister L, all the children were boys. Sadly, their mother, M, died in 1892, and was buried in Lowestoft. This immediately gave me one possible reason why E came to the House of Mercy, as the entry register shows that many of those who came to the House had lost a parent. Unfortunately, it seems that there was more going on for E. In researching her parents, I came across an entry showing that R had been brought before the Summer Assizes in Bury St Edmund’s in 1894, although found not guilty. I was not going to research this further until I noticed the name of the victim: E. R had been accused of ‘unlawfully carnally knowing E, aged 14 years and 6 months, in or about the month of March 1894’. While he was found not guilty, from a newspaper report of the trial, it seems that this was from lack of evidence. The judge felt there was not enough evidence to convict R for so serious a crime, and he was acquitted. However, E was one of those who testified against R., which must have been traumatic for her, even more so if she had, in fact, been abused by him. It is impossible now to know what happened, but it must be linked to E’s presence in the House of Mercy, especially as the entry register shows she entered in March 1895, less than a year after the trial. The Register has only one line, but does include some space for general comments. E entered age 15, and had been at St Augustine’s Lodge for 8 months, having come from Lowestoft. It states ‘4 months doing wrong, bad father, no house’. St Augustine’s was our short stay refuge in Norwich, where all the House of Mercy residents came from; I have no idea what was meant by ‘doing wrong’, but it is used elsewhere in the register, and may have been simply a general phrase. The reference to ‘no house’ is supported by the 1901 census, where R and his two youngest sons were boarders in Lowestoft. R was a dock labourer.

Whatever the truth of what happened between E and her father, all this information gives the impression of an unstable background. One aspect of the case that bothered me was what happened to E after the trial; she could not possibly have gone back to live with her father, could she? If my calculations are correct, then she did not. She entered the House of Mercy on the 4^th March 1895, after eight months at St Augustine’s; that takes us back to the previous summer. To me, it suggests that the ‘4 months doing wrong’ may refer back to that month of March 1894, and possibly to however E reacted to it. It would, I think, be treated very differently now; certainly E’s testimony would be given more credence than may have been the case in the 1890s. But whatever we think about the attitudes of the time, at least E was given some help, even if it was inadequate by current standards.

It was not just E, of course; what happened to her younger sister, L? Was she also in danger? Thankfully, she seems to have been protected. In 1901, age 15, L is registered as an Industrial at our Orphanage, where she would have been educated and trained as a Domestic Servant. Whatever the truth about happened between R and E, by coming to us, L was given a stable and (hopefully) happy upbringing to prepare her for adult life. She went on to marry a fisherman in 1907, living most of her life in Lincolnshire.

E’s story is still slightly confusing. I have always believed that the House of Mercy only took people for two years, based on original documents in our Archive. So I was surprised to see that E had entered in 1895, given that she was still there in 1901. We have no evidence as to where and when the girls left the House of Mercy, although I do know that some were given work in one of our houses, before being sent to service elsewhere, and it is possible that E was working there as a servant in 1901. By 1911, she had left and was working for a family. Registered as a general domestic servant, she was the only servant they had living in. She was still with the same family in the 1939 register. She died in 1954, aged 74. I can only hope that, by staying with the same family for so long, E’s life after she left us was a happy one. Many of the issues E, L and their siblings had to deal with are still relevant now. While it felt important to relate E’s story, I am also concerned for those who are suffering today. It is vital that we do what we can to protect the vulnerable, whether that is by being aware of the issues, completing safeguarding training and so on, or a more direct role. Let us pray that the time will come when none shall ‘hurt or destroy’ for all shall know the Lord. (See Isaiah 11:9).