Kathy Orford-Perkins tells the story of the Venerable Mary Potter and the Little Company of Mary. See St. Barnabas Cathedral Website

The Venerable Mary Potter is Nottingham Cathedral’s own “saint in the making”. Her work began in 1877 in Hyson Green where she established the first Catholic religious congregation of women specifically dedicated to nursing. Mary Potter’s care of the poor, the sick and the dying were recognised by the present pope in 1988 when he declared her to be venerable: the first stage in the process of sainthood. The mortal remains of the Venerable Mary Potter were re-buried in the north ambulatory of the Cathedral in 1997.

Mary Potter was born on November 22nd 1847 in Bermondsey, Surrey. Her father, William Potter, had been strongly opposed to his wife’s recent conversion to Catholicism and he very much objected to her having their children baptised in her new faith. Not long after his daughter’s birth Mr Potter left his wife and five children and was never seen again. Mrs Potter and her children lived in the parish of St George’s, Southwark. Mary was confirmed in that church on May 21st 1857 and received her First Holy Communion there in the December of that year. In 1865 Mary moved with her mother and brother, Thomas, to live in Southsea near Portsmouth.

A regular visitor at the Potter household in Southsea was Godfrey King with whom Mary became friends. After a while they were engaged to be married. Godfrey, a most devout young man, encouraged Mary towards a deeper appreciation of her faith by lending her spiritual reading material; the books were often left unread. What Godfrey succeeded in doing was to introduce Mary to prayer. However, as her spiritual life developed Mary came to realise that marriage was not for her so she ended their engagement. In 1868 Mary entered a convent but after spending some months as a novice Mary concluded that her vocation was not with that particular congregation; she returned home to her mother.

One day in October 1874 Mary was reading her bible when the words in the Gospel of St John, 15:16, “I chose you, I appointed you to go on and bear fruit, fruit that shall last” made such an enormous impression on her. From then on she knew that her mission in life was to nurse the sick and pray for the dying and form an institute of women dedicated to the purpose. There were plenty of obstacles to overcome before her plans could be realised. Nevertheless, Mary Potter was content to trust in the Lord and wait until she could begin her work in his service. After an interval of three years an opportunity presented itself when her brother, George, brought her ideas to the attention of his acquaintance, Edward Gilpin Bagshawe, Bishop of Nottingham.

“Miss Potter called” is recorded in Bishop Bagshawe’s diary under the date January 14th 1877. Mary had travelled to Nottingham from her home in Southsea to ask the bishop if he would allow her and a group of women that she knew to care for the sick in his diocese. The bishop was in agreement. He gave Mary Potter permission to commence her work and sent her to Hyson Green, then a particularly impoverished area, where he had long wanted to start a mission. A dilapidated old silk factory, situated in Lenton Street, was found and with the help of some friendly neighbours it was converted into the first convent of the new congregation. The convent, which also served as a mission chapel for the people of Hyson Green, was officially opened by the bishop on Easter Monday, 1877.

Two of the co-founding members of her group were Elizabeth Bryan and Agnes Bray. They had arrived in Nottingham on St Patrick’s Day, 1877; the Misses Eleanor Smith and Edith Coleridge, a trained nurse from St George’s Hospital, London, joined them in May. On July 2nd 1877 the five ladies received the habit and their distinctive pale blue veils by virtue of which they became commonly known as the ‘blue nuns’. The title of the congregation, The Little Company of Mary, is representative of the small number of people who stood by the cross of Jesus with his mother, Mary.

The pioneering sisters, with the others who joined them, embarked on their charitable work: teaching the basics of hygiene and child care to the women of the area; visiting anyone detained in prison and the workhouse; nursing the sick in their own homes; praying for the dying; assisting the poor and providing aid to anyone who called at the convent door. As a result of the efforts of Mother Mary Potter and her community of sisters many converts were received into the Church, babies and adults were baptised and numerous people, who for one reason or another had neglected the practise of their faith, returned to it. Eventually it became necessary to build a church to accommodate the growing congregation and the parish of St Mary’s, Hyson Green, has its origins in the mission started in Lenton Street.

Dr Bagshawe allowed the sisters to become involved in midwifery care which was quite forward thinking on the bishop’s part. In the late nineteenth century, when the incidence of infant and maternal mortality was excessively high, there was a great need for this type of provision. At one time Mary Potter even considered that midwifery ought to be the main apostolate of her congregation. It was not to be. Canon Law, at that time, did not permit religious women to deliver babies so when Cardinal Manning discovered what the sisters were engaged in he put a stop to it! In order for the nuns to continue to provide care for expectant mothers they recruited a number of Hyson Green ladies who would attend the local women at the time of their confinement.

In the process of obtaining Vatican approval of her congregation and the Rule by which the sisters lived Mother Mary Potter made several journeys to Rome; her last visit to England was in 1899. It was during one of her visits to Rome that final approbation was granted on 24 April 1893. At the time of approval the Congregation had established six houses: two in Italy and one in England, Ireland, Australia and the USA. Within twenty years they had 16 houses. There were four in England the others in Ireland, Italy, Australia, the USA, Malta, and South Africa. In addition a nurse training school had been opened in Limerick and they were caring for the sick in their own hospitals in Dublin, Galway, Carlow and Port Elizabeth in South Africa. All from such a humble start in Nottingham.

From 1902 Mother Mary Potter remained in Rome which is where she was living at the time of her last illness and death on 9 April 1913, aged 65. In 1917 the mortal remains of Mary Potter were moved from the cemetery of Campo Santo to the crypt of the congregation’s Calvary Hospital, Rome. Eighty years later they were moved again and brought to Nottingham and re-interred in St Barnabas’ Cathedral on December 3rd, 1997.

Pope John Paul II declared Mary Potter Venerable on February 8th 1988. Perhaps she will be canonised one day.

The work of the Little Company of Mary has been recognised not only by the Church but also by civic authorities. In 1969, when the Health and Welfare Committee were about to open a new facility in Hyson Green, they thought it appropriate to name it the ‘Mary Potter Health Centre’. In 1994 Sister Elizabeth Malone became Nottingham’s first Citizen of Honour in recognition of the 40 years that she had spent in caring for the most underprivileged people of the city. Her chief apostolate was in assisting those suffering from the effects of alcohol and drug abuse and she established The Sanctuary, in Radford, as a place to which they could go for help. The Sisters of the Little Company of Mary have made a major contribution to nursing in Nottingham since their arrival in 1877. For many years the Sisters provided health care at the Convent Hospital on Egerton Road. Their work continues in Nottingham and all over the world to the present day.

For more information about the Little Company of Mary, see their website, lcmglobal.org

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