Address of Convent in Cheetham Hill Manchester 1939 required please.

[City Hall]

Hi, I remember my late mother telling me she was employed as a domestic in a convent in Cheetham Hill Manchester in 1939. When the war broke out, she was required to return to her home in the Irish Republic as the nuns could not guarantee her safety in the event of German air raids.
I am hoping to find her details on the recently released 1939 register.I have searched for her by name without success. I now know this is because she was born less than 100 years ago.I will be able to prove she is now deceased(to 'unlock' the details) but I will need to know the name of the Convent and the exact address in Cheetham Hill/ Manchester. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Paul.

[margaretmarch]

Hi, I remember my late mother telling me she was employed as a domestic in a convent in Cheetham Hill Manchester in 1939. When the war broke out, she was required to return to her home in the Irish Republic as the nuns could not guarantee her safety in the event of German air raids.
I am hoping to find her details on the recently released 1939 register.I have searched for her by name without success. I now know this is because she was born less than 100 years ago.I will be able to prove she is now deceased(to 'unlock' the details) but I will need to know the name of the Convent and the exact address in Cheetham Hill/ Manchester. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Paul.

Have a look at this site http://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/44..._local_history where they will no doubt have information about the convent.
Margaret

[Janet]

There was a Notre Dame Convent School at Cheetham Manchester, but there may be other convent schools in the area, both RC and C oF E. I presume your ancestor being from Ireland would be RC? Notre Dame Convent Schools often had boarding facilities, so domestic servants would often be reqired to help with the boarders, but rarely for the nuns, as the sisters themselves usually took on all those duties. You can google Notre Dame Cheetham to see if it is still there and if it is maybe there is an achivist at the school who might help you. The Notre Dame School Records country wide are not available through any County Archive and it can be difficult obtaining the information you want, especially if the school no longer exists. Many Notre Dame Convents throughout the country have had to close.


If the Convent was a Notre Dame Convent and you cannot get any help, then come back to me, as I have some further information on many of the Notre Dame Convents.

Janet

[clematised]

http://www.manchester-forum.co.uk/in...topic=5580.105 This Forum may be of use when looking for knowledgable people from the area

Chetham School of Music seems to have been a Boys school from back in the 15 and 1600s to this day and is next to the Cathedral of Manchester so maybe a bit of reading up on that too may give information.
Good Luck in your search

Edna

[Chrissie Smiff]

Are you sure she actually lived in the convent Paul? Have you tried looking for her under her single and married name? I ask because I couldn't find an ancestor under her single name ( she married after 1939) but I found her under her later married name, with her single name showing on the actual page and her married name added later.

[JBee]

I was surprised to find a relative a nun at a Notre Dame convent being registered under her own name and instead of occupation being a nun was given as a teacher.

[City Hall]

Hi,

Thank you to all who have taken the time to reply. I think my next move is to contact the Catholic dioceses which cover Cheetham Hill and see if they can assist me.

Regards.
Paul.

[JBee]

The Notre Dame High School was at Heywood St, Cheetham, Manchester so convent was probably there too.

You can do a search by address and it says what's the actual address is at the top of the page for each household.

[JudithM]

The convent comes up if you search Manchester Bignor Street (I believe it was on the corner of Bignor and Heywood Streets

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=tna%2fr39%2f4504%2f4504g%2f017&parentid=tna%2fr39%2f4504%2f4504g%2f017%2f08

[Janet]

The convent may have moved since 1939, if it was caught in any bombing. It has certainly gone now, but you may find out more by contacting the Archivist at Mount Pleasant Liverpool, which used to house all/some records of Notre Dame Schools countrywide where they exist!!

Janet

[Janet]

I was surprised to find a relative a nun at a Notre Dame convent being registered under her own name and instead of occupation being a nun was given as a teacher.

It was a teaching order, so most of the nuns were teachers, most being qualified and many with degrees. As far as I know that was a statutory reqirement for them to put their own names on Census returns.

Janet

[City Hall]

Hi,

Thanks to the help I have received I now know the exact name of the convent and exact address as they appear on the 1939 register.

Convent of Notre Dame	Bignor Street & Heywood Street	Manchester C.B.	Lancashire	England

So now to go about getting my mother's record unlocked.

As a complete aside, while I was 'googleing' the convent I came across the word panegyric. I like to think of myself as a bit of a word-smith, but this was a new one on me. I wonder how many people know what it means (before looking it up).

Thanks again for all the help.

Paul.

[JudithM]

Sorry, but if you look at the image of the 1939 register for that address which I posted a link to at post #9 there are no locked records at the Convent of Notre Dame.

[Chrissie Smiff]

There is a Northern Hospital and Nurses Home on Cheetham Hill in 1939. There are many maids also listed there and many also redacted. I wonder if there were some nuns involved and that could be the place Paul? This is page two - http://search.findmypast.co.uk/recor...10j%2f008%2f14

[Chrissie Smiff]

I just had another Paul. The register was taken about 29th days after the outbreak of the war. I wonder if your mother was sent home almost immediately and had gone by the time it was taken?

[City Hall]

Hi Judith and Chrissie,

Thanks for the further replies. I don't have access to the 1939 register, as I am based in Northern Ireland and the Northern Irish portion of the 1939 register has not been released. Having said that, I am confused. Judith, does your link mean that the record for the convent is not closed, and that there are only 5 residents, the 2 names listed and 3 others not listed. 5 people seems a low number of residents for any convent in the 1930s, let alone a vibrant and thriving convent supplying teachers to a nearby school !!
Chrissie, I was thinking the same thing as you, maybe my mother was sent home before the register was taken.
Thanks again to you both.

Paul.

[JudithM]

Yes there are only five people listed at the address - the principal, a retired teacher and three women whose occupation was domestic duties, two of those with the additional info "- heavy work"
A search on Google came up with a couple of forum for ex pupils which show that the Notre Dame Convent School itself was on the corner of Bignor Street and Heywood Street. Many of the teachers would have been lay people, not nuns, so would not have lived on the premises. Perhaps any nuns on the teaching staff lived in separate accommodation, but surely there they would have done their own cleaning etc rather than employing domestic servants.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Judith

I don't think nuns did their own cleaning unless they were in an enclosed order.

I wonder - perhaps the school had already been evacuated?

OC

[Jill on the A272]

I also think that the school could have been evacuated by then, looking back at the logbook for the school in Sussex where I work, our school was closed for several extra days after the school holidays until Sept 13th by order of the Director of Education in order to make arrangements for the incoming evacuees, (ours came from London) and the 1939 register shows several London County Council teachers already resident here.

[Janet]

Yes there are only five people listed at the address - the principal, a retired teacher and three women whose occupation was domestic duties, two of those with the additional info "- heavy work"
A search on Google came up with a couple of forum for ex pupils which show that the Notre Dame Convent School itself was on the corner of Bignor Street and Heywood Street. Many of the teachers would have been lay people, not nuns, so would not have lived on the premises. Perhaps any nuns on the teaching staff lived in separate accommodation, but surely there they would have done their own cleaning etc rather than employing domestic servants.

In 1939 all Notre Dame Convents had plenty of nuns within their convents and as the Notre Dame order is a teaching order there were schools attached to all Notre Dame Convents and all pupils were taught mainly by nuns, but with lay staff as well.

As this is 1939 and not 1940+ the school and convent would not have been part of the evacuation scheme at this time. The only area of evacuation in 1939 was in London and this was known as the "phony war" as many schools and young people were evacuated from London only.

I went to a Notre Dame Convent School in the 1950's and I knew some of the nuns at the convent who were not educated to teach, did do other things within the convent like cooking, gardening and other duties.

I wonder if the 1939 Register found reflects the school part and not the Convent part? If this is the case then no pupils would be named, all would be redacted and that would just leave the names of the people in charge of the school. It would not reflect the lay teachers, as they would be living elsewhere, and all the nuns woud be living in the convent and not the school.

Janet