John Eady - Notre Dame High School, Norwich: A celebration of the first 150 years 1864–2014

Pupils, 1934. Ruby Jolly, Mary Palmer, Biddy Armstrong, Ursula Denny, with Bernadette Henderson in the front.

Sponsored walk 2008. The sponsored walk is the schools main fundraising event for charitable causes. The current route goes round Whitlingham Broad.

Cathedral Mass, 2010. The whole school walk through Norwich at the beginning of the school year to celebrate Mass at the Catholic Cathedral on Grapes Hill.

I t is an incredible privilege to be part of this wonderful school as it celebrates 150 years since its foundation by the Sisters of Notre Dame. I think that those six Sisters would be amazed by the changes that Notre Dame High School has seen in those 150 years the buildings, the technology, the curriculum, even perhaps the presence of boys in this school. However, I think they would still recognise the core purpose and values that they embodied in their work. The founding Sisters of Notre Dame would see that our Catholic values inspire us and that we develop through caring for those around us. They would see that we know that a good education provides the best opportunity in life, and that we want everyone to be successful, to be happy, to feel loved and to feel part of a community. The Sisters would still recognise that the educational journey through Notre Dame, as we grow and develop, leaves a lasting impression and memories to treasure. I think their educational and spiritual values placing our faith in God at the centre of what we do still reverberates throughout this school and that ethos remains the powerful driving force behind this school.

This history of the first 150 years is a wonderful record of the work and achievements of the Sisters of Notre Dame, the many staff and the huge number of students who have passed through this school. On behalf of everyone currently involved with the school I would like to thank all who have been involved in the production of this book, and the legacy of all those who have contributed to the first 150 years of education at Notre Dame High School in Norwich.

Brian Conway
Head teacher

Saint Julie Billiart (17511816). Contemporary portrait of the founder of the Order.

T HE TRAIN FROM L ONDON STEAMED SLOWLY IN TO Norwich station on the morning of 13 October 1864. Amongst the alighting passengers were six English Sisters of the Order of Notre Dame de Namur. The first nuns in Norwich since the Reformation, they were undoubtedly the object of much curiosity and some suspicion. First through the station barrier, carrying a statue of Our Lady, the Mother of Christ, was Sister Anne of St John. She was followed by Sister Stanislaus of the Immaculate Conception, Sister Aloyse of the Cross, Sister Clare of the Cross, the novice Sister Mary Anne Joseph and their Superior, Sister Mary of the Redemption. So began the story of the Sisters in Norwich, and the school they founded.

At that time, life in Norwich epitomised a mixture of Victorian practices and the foundations of modern society. For a city that was later proudly to boast it had a pub for every day of the year, in the mid-nineteenth century there were a staggering 600 pubs. Poverty was endemic, particularly in the notorious yards lining Ber Street, which housed deprived families in wretched conditions. The general health of the city population was extremely poor; in the 1870s medical journal The Lancet reported that Norwich had the highest mortality rate of twenty large towns and cities it had surveyed. The world the Sisters entered was undoubtedly harsh and brutal, with the last public hanging, from gallows erected between the gatehouses leading up to Norwich Castle, occurring as late as 1867. Nevertheless the city was the perfect place for the Sisters, whose mission to serve the poor and educate children concentrated on areas of urban deprivation, particularly in regions where there was a dearth of Catholics.

The Order of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur owed its existence to the founding vision of Julie Billiart, a villager from Cuvilly in Picardy, approximately 60 miles north of Paris. Born on 12 July 1751, Julie attended her village school, where her spirituality and gifts for communicating the love of God were soon recognised.

Ber Street, 1908. The main thoroughfare for driving cattle to the huge market below the castle until 1960. Colloquially known as Blood and Guts Street due to its association with the well-known butchery trade, Ber Street bordered the convent land and housed poor families in the squalid conditions of the yards. When the Sisters first arrived there were upwards of 25 pubs along this old Roman road.

The course of Julies life was changed forever when she was twenty-three, for she was witness to an unsuccessful attempt on her fathers life. This event precipitated a nervous condition in Julie, which was treated by blood letting. As a result, her legs became paralysed and she was bedridden, a condition she endured for the next twenty-two years. In spite of this affliction, Julies gifts as a storyteller and teacher meant that people continued to flock to her bedside to receive teaching about Gods goodness.

France in the late eighteenth century was a dangerous place, for the country was in the turmoil of the French Revolution. The established order of State and Church was under threat, and Julie, as a prominent and well-known Catholic, was in grave danger. With help, in 1790 she fled her village and went into hiding nearby. Whilst in hiding Julie had a vision of a group of women standing below Jesus cross with the promise of the words Behold these spiritual daughters whom I give you in an Institute marked by the Cross. She determined to follow her calling to found an order of nuns as God had instructed her to do.

Julie eventually took up lodgings in Amiens in 1794, staying in the home of the aristocratic Blin de Bourdon family. The daughter, Franoise, had been imprisoned and escaped the guillotine only by the fall of Robespierre, architect of the Reign of Terror. The two women struck up an unlikely friendship, based on their shared devotion to God.

Globe Yard, Heigham Street, about 1916. Women and children dressed in their best clothes for this photo during the First World War.

On 2 February 1804 Julie and Franoise consecrated themselves to God in the person of the poor ones of Jesus Christ and pledged themselves to the training of teachers specifically for the poor. This Mass marked the foundation of the Order of the Sisters of Notre Dame. Education and the training of teachers were key aspects of the Order. Julies faith shaped the core values, whilst Franoises fortune funded the purchase of property. Julie was adamant that the Order should exist only for the poor, writing in 1808: I ask you again to receive only poor little girls who cannot pay at all. Collect as many of them as you can. We exist only for the poor, only for the poor, absolutely only for the poor.