Newcastle-upon-Tyne Community and Branch Houses, 1857-2012

Reverend Mother M. Liguori Gibson of Mount Vernon, Liverpool, responded in 1855 to a plea from Dr. Hogarth, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, by conducting four Sisters to their new home in Westgate Road, Newcastle. In October 1856 it ceased to depend on Mount Vernon and was given the status of a Foundation, Sr. M. Geraghty being appointed as its first superior. The Sisters were sent for the purposes of instruction and visiting the sick, and the Sisters opened a school for poor children on 11 June 1855 within two rooms of the convent. By 1859, the new St Mary's School was opened in Rutherford Street beside the convent. The Sisters continued teaching in the school until 1985. A private school was also opened on 11 June 1855 in the Sister's refectory with five pupils.

The community was attracting vocations so that in 1860 they were in a position to open the first branch house in North Shields. A second branch house opened in Blackhill in 1865 but was closed two years later because of the relatively greater need in Newcastle itself. In October 1870 a property in Summerhill Grove was purchased and in February 1871 four Sisters and four pupil-teachers working in St Mary's moved into the new St Anne's Convent. In the course of the next year, numbers 1 and 2 Summerhill Grove were purchased for use as a House of Mercy as the one in Westgate Street was proving to be inadequate. A Laundry for the girls was built adjacent to the House of Mercy. In 1897 a branch house was established in Durham City. A shortage of Sisters forced a reluctant withdrawal from there in 1960. The original convent in Westgate Road closed in 1919 and the community moved to the enlarged St Anne's. In 1920 'The Hermitage' was purchased in Lowick for use by the Sisters as a holiday house.

During the Second World War (1939-1945), the Sisters and their pupils were evacuated, some to Dalston in Cumbria and others nearer home to the SVP Heddon Rest Home. When they returned to Newcastle, the House of Mercy was no longer needed for its original purpose and was used to accommodate boarders and subsequently the Society of St Vincent de Paul as a centre for their work with the deaf of the diocese.

In 1969 Newcastle joined the Federation of the Sisters of Mercy. In 1954, St Anne's senior pupils moved to a new building in Elswick Street until closure in 1983. The Infant and junior pupils remained in Summerhill Grove until 1974 when a new school was built in Summerhill Terrace. This is now the Catholic Parish school named Our Lady and St Anne's. In 1984 a Day Centre (Luncheon Club) for the Elderly was opened in St Anne's. In the mid-1980s the Handicapped Children's Club moved into the basement and second floor of numbers 7 and 8 Summerhill Grove. In 1991, permission was granted for the conversion of the former convent into sheltered accommodation for the elderly, managed by the Knights of Malta.

In 1983, Newcastle became part of the Institute of Our Lady of Mercy. In 1984, Sr. Maureen Moss from St Anne's Convent was assigned to pastoral care in the Parish of Saints Peter and Paul, Longbenton. In 1987, numbers 58 and 60 Glenfield Road, Longbenton were formally erected as a Convent of Mercy. In 1984, the Sisters left the North Shields Convent of Mercy for High Heaton. 10 Parkhead Road in St Teresa's Parish, High Heaton, was home for Sisters teaching and visiting those in hospital and housebound. In 1993, a new convent was opened in North Shields in the catchment area of St Joseph's Primary School, Chirlton where Sr. M. Michael Bell had been headmistress for many years until her appointment as Leader of the Institute of Our Lady of Mercy in 2003.

[Taken from 'Short History of St Anne's, Newcastle upon Tyne' by Sr. Barbara Jeffery, within Mass of Thanksgiving booklet 1855-2005.]