Convent of St Paul de Chartres
The History of the Convent of St Paul de Chartrés
The building was originally an Inn named the Old Kings Arms which was a Coaching House according to a map dated 1836,
It was reputed that Mr. W. E. Gladstone stayed at the Inn in 1841 during the electoral campaign of his brother, Capt. John N. Gladstone, who contested Walsall as a Tory and was elected over his opponent Mr. J. B. Smith, the Liberal candidate.
The Old Inn was purchased, enlarged and subsequently occupied by Mr. A. J. Russell whose wife was the daughter of the Vicar of Bloxwich. The Inn was later renamed Wallington House and remained in the possession of the Russell Family until 1904 when it was purchased and opened as a convent for the Sisters of St Paul de Chartrés.
They opened a Secondary School at the Convent in 1905 and the School buildings, which were adjoined to the house, were erected in 1909 and opened with 15 pupils in attendance; the Convent closed in 1964.
(Ref: The Story of Bloxwich - E.J. Homeshaw, 1953)
For more information about the Sisters of St Paul de Chartres, please click here_ www.stpaulrome.com/eng-france.html
The building was originally an Inn named the Old Kings Arms which was a Coaching House according to a map dated 1836,
It was reputed that Mr. W. E. Gladstone stayed at the Inn in 1841 during the electoral campaign of his brother, Capt. John N. Gladstone, who contested Walsall as a Tory and was elected over his opponent Mr. J. B. Smith, the Liberal candidate.
The Old Inn was purchased, enlarged and subsequently occupied by Mr. A. J. Russell whose wife was the daughter of the Vicar of Bloxwich. The Inn was later renamed Wallington House and remained in the possession of the Russell Family until 1904 when it was purchased and opened as a convent for the Sisters of St Paul de Chartrés.
They opened a Secondary School at the Convent in 1905 and the School buildings, which were adjoined to the house, were erected in 1909 and opened with 15 pupils in attendance; the Convent closed in 1964.
(Ref: The Story of Bloxwich - E.J. Homeshaw, 1953)
For more information about the Sisters of St Paul de Chartres, please click here_ www.stpaulrome.com/eng-france.html
St Paul's Convent through the eyes of a pupil.
One of the pupils at the Convent was the eminent Author and Historian Professor Robert Tombs. Robert attended the School between 1954 and 1960 and later passed to St Chad's College in Wolverhampton from where he passed to Cambridge University and eventually gained a Professorship.
Robert kindly agreed to provide an insight into life at the Convent School through the eyes of a pupil.
He begins:
I have a vivid memory of first setting foot in the Convent in Stafford Road opposite Wallington Heath just beyond the King George Playing Fields. It was in an eighteenth-century building with a pillared portico and a gravel drive, a former coaching inn - the Old King’s Arms. When I was about 4 my parents took me for a sort of interview. The room was very clean and polished and I was introduced to the Reverend Mother who was French and spoke with a strong accent; being a child she seemed to me very old. She must have been old enough to remember when the Sisters of St Paul of Chartres were forbidden to teach, dissolved and effectively expelled from France in the early 1900's. She remained a remote and awe-inspiring figure.
The school was mainly for girls up to 16, but with a sprinkling of boys up to 11. I can’t say much about its social composition: I guess the families were small business, white collar and skilled working class, all local. The school was run by a dynamic and charismatic Sister - like most of the nuns was Irish, and there were also one or two French. There were also several lay teachers, all women. The only man I recall was the gardener; and occasionally tramps came to the door for food and were always admitted - we children took them food. The school building was a single-storey red brick building in rather traditional style, with classrooms round a central hall. There was a laboratory, never used I think, and upstairs in the adjoining convent (which we rarely if ever entered) a small chapel smelling of polish. We went there occasionally (it was really for the nuns), and eventually I got the job of serving mass on Saturday mornings at 8 o’clock - a mixed blessing. The wooden floors of the school were also oiled and polished, and we had to wear crepe-soled sandals indoors. There were quite large grounds: two playgrounds, a kitchen garden, a large grass playing field (on which we often saw the nuns playing energetic hockey in their long black habits and curved white hats), and ‘the Lake’.
The kindergarten when I was in it was run by a very elegant young lady who drove a big Ford (unusual then). Then we went up to the next class which was run by a Sister, a tough Irish woman. We were also taught for a time by a very pretty young Irish girl whose name I forget: she was rumoured to be the sister of the one who ran the school. Our classes were mixed, though boys and girls sat apart. The girls of course worked harder than the boys and were more mature, and hence did better. I remember two particular girls who were usually the best. If I was lucky, I came in the top three or four. Those we called ‘the Big Girls’ (over 11) were a separate breed, and I even found it hard to remember where their classrooms were, though the school building was small.
We always celebrated St Patrick’s Day, and prayed for the Conversion of England. We were taught music - in fact, choral singing - by a lay teacher, who always looked rather harassed. The whole school sang together: serious stuff by Elgar and Bach. We also did country dancing and Music and Movement, which I hated (as did most of the boys). Despite the Lab, we did no science, but at the end we did some Latin and French. I also remember being in a couple of school plays - a nativity play and a sort of fairy story. In this I was Prince Dandino, in green satin run up by my mother, if I remember rightly, and the lovely blond girl was the princess.
The fees were not high, I think, and the school, though well maintained, was not rich. Parents were expected to muck in, and my father Joe (a natural organiser) and my uncle Dennis (my cousins also went to the convent) were active in the parent-teacher association. I remember them both, and our neighbour and dear friend (Polish-French), working all day and well into the night spreading ready-mixed concrete before it set, and so turning a rather nasty cinder patch into an acceptable playground. They also organised an annual garden fete - an event in the Bloxwich calendar - to raise money. This paid for a new tarmac tennis court.
The ethos was an interesting mixture of strictness and laxity, such as would hardly be imaginable today. It was needless to say very religious. Things such as eating in the street or not taking off our caps to ladies were severely frowned on. So was banging the chalk dust off the board rubber against the school wall, rather than an adjacent tree. Any cheek was utterly unacceptable, almost unimaginable. The Sister was very good at being (or at least seeming) utterly horrified and outraged by tiny misdemeanours. I remember one boy being briefly shut in the hen coop (the nuns kept poultry), which would doubtless nowadays cause outrage. I think it was not uncommon for fidgety children to be tied to chairs - then common, now utterly unthinkable. But there was never any hitting. On the other hand, the Sister was quite undisturbed by things that would nowadays be regarded as matters for the police, or at least for suspension, counselling or expulsion. Boys will be boys seemed to be her maxim. Fights were quite frequent among the boys, and even outside with boys from St Peter’s (in which I admit being involved): Sister merely said that if we wanted to fight we should come and do it with boxing gloves and she would referee. She once told me off for making another boy’s nose bleed, but only because he was smaller (I protested that he was older, but she pointed out that boxing was by weight). One year we discovered that the little sweet shop across the road (run by an elderly blind lady) sold water pistols, and we fought epic battles at school, soaking ourselves and making the girls squeal. No one seemed to mind.
If we were good, and the weather was nice, One of the Sisters would take us for a walk round ‘the Lake’ - a fairly small and overgrown one within the grounds, surrounded by rhododendrons. This was a great treat. We believed the Lake was bottomless, and there was also supposed to be a ghost. Going anywhere near it on our own was one of the few unbreakable rules, with threats of ferocious if unspecified penalties - and no one did (it was not fenced off – Sister’s instructions were enough!). If the weather was bad, our treat was to have a story read by one of the Sisters - often a story from a missionary magazine. During that we might be doing ‘handwork’ - a strange way of making rugs with glue and razor blades.
During play time we were pretty much allowed to run riot, which included doing what were I suppose quite dangerous acrobatics on the goalposts. Many of us carried knives, both penknives and scout knives, and no one thought anything of it. When the girls went to ballet or swimming, the boys were left to do as they liked, completely unsupervised, which meant marathon games of football in winter and cricket in summer. Alas, I never learned to swim - there were no male teachers to take us. I remember writing to the Football Association to ask them to send us the rules of football - they did! We also played tennis. All this we did on our own, which was probably good for us. In short, it was a sort of paradise for boys.
Robert Tombs
If anyone who attended the Convent School wishes to contact Robert, his email address is [email protected]
Robert kindly agreed to provide an insight into life at the Convent School through the eyes of a pupil.
He begins:
I have a vivid memory of first setting foot in the Convent in Stafford Road opposite Wallington Heath just beyond the King George Playing Fields. It was in an eighteenth-century building with a pillared portico and a gravel drive, a former coaching inn - the Old King’s Arms. When I was about 4 my parents took me for a sort of interview. The room was very clean and polished and I was introduced to the Reverend Mother who was French and spoke with a strong accent; being a child she seemed to me very old. She must have been old enough to remember when the Sisters of St Paul of Chartres were forbidden to teach, dissolved and effectively expelled from France in the early 1900's. She remained a remote and awe-inspiring figure.
The school was mainly for girls up to 16, but with a sprinkling of boys up to 11. I can’t say much about its social composition: I guess the families were small business, white collar and skilled working class, all local. The school was run by a dynamic and charismatic Sister - like most of the nuns was Irish, and there were also one or two French. There were also several lay teachers, all women. The only man I recall was the gardener; and occasionally tramps came to the door for food and were always admitted - we children took them food. The school building was a single-storey red brick building in rather traditional style, with classrooms round a central hall. There was a laboratory, never used I think, and upstairs in the adjoining convent (which we rarely if ever entered) a small chapel smelling of polish. We went there occasionally (it was really for the nuns), and eventually I got the job of serving mass on Saturday mornings at 8 o’clock - a mixed blessing. The wooden floors of the school were also oiled and polished, and we had to wear crepe-soled sandals indoors. There were quite large grounds: two playgrounds, a kitchen garden, a large grass playing field (on which we often saw the nuns playing energetic hockey in their long black habits and curved white hats), and ‘the Lake’.
The kindergarten when I was in it was run by a very elegant young lady who drove a big Ford (unusual then). Then we went up to the next class which was run by a Sister, a tough Irish woman. We were also taught for a time by a very pretty young Irish girl whose name I forget: she was rumoured to be the sister of the one who ran the school. Our classes were mixed, though boys and girls sat apart. The girls of course worked harder than the boys and were more mature, and hence did better. I remember two particular girls who were usually the best. If I was lucky, I came in the top three or four. Those we called ‘the Big Girls’ (over 11) were a separate breed, and I even found it hard to remember where their classrooms were, though the school building was small.
We always celebrated St Patrick’s Day, and prayed for the Conversion of England. We were taught music - in fact, choral singing - by a lay teacher, who always looked rather harassed. The whole school sang together: serious stuff by Elgar and Bach. We also did country dancing and Music and Movement, which I hated (as did most of the boys). Despite the Lab, we did no science, but at the end we did some Latin and French. I also remember being in a couple of school plays - a nativity play and a sort of fairy story. In this I was Prince Dandino, in green satin run up by my mother, if I remember rightly, and the lovely blond girl was the princess.
The fees were not high, I think, and the school, though well maintained, was not rich. Parents were expected to muck in, and my father Joe (a natural organiser) and my uncle Dennis (my cousins also went to the convent) were active in the parent-teacher association. I remember them both, and our neighbour and dear friend (Polish-French), working all day and well into the night spreading ready-mixed concrete before it set, and so turning a rather nasty cinder patch into an acceptable playground. They also organised an annual garden fete - an event in the Bloxwich calendar - to raise money. This paid for a new tarmac tennis court.
The ethos was an interesting mixture of strictness and laxity, such as would hardly be imaginable today. It was needless to say very religious. Things such as eating in the street or not taking off our caps to ladies were severely frowned on. So was banging the chalk dust off the board rubber against the school wall, rather than an adjacent tree. Any cheek was utterly unacceptable, almost unimaginable. The Sister was very good at being (or at least seeming) utterly horrified and outraged by tiny misdemeanours. I remember one boy being briefly shut in the hen coop (the nuns kept poultry), which would doubtless nowadays cause outrage. I think it was not uncommon for fidgety children to be tied to chairs - then common, now utterly unthinkable. But there was never any hitting. On the other hand, the Sister was quite undisturbed by things that would nowadays be regarded as matters for the police, or at least for suspension, counselling or expulsion. Boys will be boys seemed to be her maxim. Fights were quite frequent among the boys, and even outside with boys from St Peter’s (in which I admit being involved): Sister merely said that if we wanted to fight we should come and do it with boxing gloves and she would referee. She once told me off for making another boy’s nose bleed, but only because he was smaller (I protested that he was older, but she pointed out that boxing was by weight). One year we discovered that the little sweet shop across the road (run by an elderly blind lady) sold water pistols, and we fought epic battles at school, soaking ourselves and making the girls squeal. No one seemed to mind.
If we were good, and the weather was nice, One of the Sisters would take us for a walk round ‘the Lake’ - a fairly small and overgrown one within the grounds, surrounded by rhododendrons. This was a great treat. We believed the Lake was bottomless, and there was also supposed to be a ghost. Going anywhere near it on our own was one of the few unbreakable rules, with threats of ferocious if unspecified penalties - and no one did (it was not fenced off – Sister’s instructions were enough!). If the weather was bad, our treat was to have a story read by one of the Sisters - often a story from a missionary magazine. During that we might be doing ‘handwork’ - a strange way of making rugs with glue and razor blades.
During play time we were pretty much allowed to run riot, which included doing what were I suppose quite dangerous acrobatics on the goalposts. Many of us carried knives, both penknives and scout knives, and no one thought anything of it. When the girls went to ballet or swimming, the boys were left to do as they liked, completely unsupervised, which meant marathon games of football in winter and cricket in summer. Alas, I never learned to swim - there were no male teachers to take us. I remember writing to the Football Association to ask them to send us the rules of football - they did! We also played tennis. All this we did on our own, which was probably good for us. In short, it was a sort of paradise for boys.
Robert Tombs
If anyone who attended the Convent School wishes to contact Robert, his email address is [email protected]
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