The Convent of our Lady of Compassion, Acocks Green
The convent school in Acocks Green is one of the more interesting
and unusual aspects of the history of the area. It played a part
in Catholic education, but not only education of Catholics, for
over forty years. It operated alongside a school, Holy Souls school,
built in 1907, which has until now functioned as an annexe to
Archbishop Ilsley R.C. Secondary school. Holy Souls school was
free to pupils and was paid for by the church. Church schools
like this aimed to educate the poor. Fee-paying schools like the
convent school were for a different class of pupils. Mrs Berti,
Headteacher at Holy Souls told us that the class divide between the schools was strict, and the pupils were not supposed to mix.
It is easy to forget now how potent class differences were, even
within a religious minority for whom emancipation was a relatively
recent phenomenon. According to Sister Agnes at Olton Convent,
the church originally intended the school at Olton (opened in
1903) to be for the children of gentlemen, and that at Acocks
Green for the children of tradesmen! Over time, however, that
distinction disappeared. Furthermore, although religious differences
played a much greater role in people's minds then, the class issue
appeared to be more important, for many Protestant children were
sent to the convent school by their parents. In September 1939 the school was
evacuated to Strensham Court near Tewkesbury, which had been empty for some
years: the nuns had to take their furniture there! Six months later everyone
returned, shortly before bombing began, ironically. One bomb landed behind the
Red Lion and blew out all the school's windows, which were subsequently boarded
up, providing blackout at all hours. The convent school was replaced
by a boys' private preparatory school named Crosby Hall from 1948
until 1966, using the same buildings. For a while, as the new
Holy Souls school was being built, the ground floor of the former
convent school buildings were used, but the upper floors were
by then in too poor a condition to be safe for classrooms (thanks
to Josephina Zacaroli for this information). Since the Second
World War, religious education has been substantially supported
by the state, and from the late 1960s a new primary school has
stood on the other side of the Warwick Road, and Archbishop Ilsley
school has grown in several phases since the mid-1950s. The convent school
buildings were demolished in the early 1970s.
The convent was created in Acocks Green by the Order of Our
Lady of Compassion. These were French nuns, who had fled religious
intolerance, and who had a base in Olton. We are very grateful
to the Servite Sisters there, and in particular to their archivist,
Sister Agnes, for allowing us to copy and make available so much
information about the school. Much of the detail below comes from
a charming story called 'The last sighs of the larch', by Mere
Ste Therese, which is reproduced here.
In 1905 the nuns came to look at Wilton House, one of three adjacent
large houses built in the mid-nineteenth century on the Warwick
Road, and which had housed a succession of wealthy families. Wilton
House had been empty for two years, and it was bought for use
as a convent, with the intention of creating a school too. It
was necessary to have a priest available, and Father John Gibbons
came from St Chad's. The convent was founded in August 1905, to
the disapproval of the next-door neighbour, who later moved away.
A month later, the arrival of seven children, six girls and one
boy, marked the opening of the school.
The room to be used for the school had briefly been used as
a chapel, so that moved to a wooden extension to the greenhouse!
This was in use for two years until Holy Souls school was built
just south of the house. The ground floor of the new building
was the schoolroom, and the first floor was the chapel. So there
were now two schools, with the convent school taking girls and
a few younger boys. By the end of 1906 it had 60 pupils. As it
became more successful, the opportunity arose to purchase the
Hollies, the house just to the north. This was bought in 1913,
and was intended to be the site for a permanent church, but in
the end it was Wilton House that was built over in the 1920s,
and the Hollies which housed the convent. In April 1919 the nuns
moved into the Hollies, which had been an annexe, and in the autumn
of that year it became possible to buy the third house in the
row, Malvern House, which was next to the Red Lion pub. This became
the school, and the Hollies was the convent, but extensions, enlargements
and alterations made that distinction less clear over time. In
the mid-1930s new classrooms and a hall were built, the hall standing
behind Malvern House on a former playground. Beyond there, fruit
bushes were replaced by a new playground and a hard court for
tennis and netball.
Acocks Green convent school was in business until July 1948,
when the nuns returned to Olton, and the diocese opened Crosby
Hall, a private preparatory school for boys, on the site. This
closed in 1966, as numbers attending were in decline. In the same
year another private school, just south of Holy Souls church,
namely Wellesbourne school, also closed. This was not a Catholic
school, but these closures marked the end of an era during which
a great variety of private education had flourished in the area.
The church bought the Wellesbourne school grounds.
An extract from the 1886 O.S. map, with the Red Lion, the three
houses, and the building which later became Wellesbourne school
An extract from the 1953 O.S. map, with the church where Wilton
House was, and Holy Souls school in front of Wellesbourne school.
The next four images are sketches of the buildings by Margaret
Inglis, who was at the school from 1932-1940.
We have been able to read some memories of the convent school,
and interview some of the former pupils. We have reproduced a
few items which give a flavour of life there on the images
page. We have a copy of the school
photograph from 1928 (thank you to Eileen Staley). In addition, we have reproduced two sets of advertising
postcards, the
set from around 1920, and one
from the 1930s. Life there seems to have been happy, and the
teaching good. The school took boarders and day pupils. It did
not seem to cause a problem if you were not Catholic, according
to the accounts we have seen. Lessons were held in the usual subjects,
but also in 'politeness', according to Mary Bullock (known as
Molly), who attended from 1910-1923. The nuns were of course concerned
that the children behaved well, and Molly has told us a story
of one misdemeanour she was involved in!
"The cellars were 'out of bounds'. When the school expanded
into a second house, our 'set' decided to risk exploring 'down
under': so in 'Recreation' (i.e. the Convent's interpretation
of 'Break') we crept into the forbidden regions. Suddenly a voice
from above called us peremptorily: "Montez". We crept
up full of apprehension, coldly eyed by Mother St. Paul's terrifying
spectacles. She had her hands crossed and hidden in the voluminous
sleeves of her habit, and she looked daggers but said absolutely
nothing. We spent the rest of the week in salutary dread of the
awful fate awaiting us. But - that was it! We heard nothing further
and we never went exploring there again."
Molly has also given us a flavour of life in Acocks Green around
1920. "Acocks Green was a quiet little village. Little girls
could walk unattended to school and could play in the fields unsupervised.
The shopkeepers seemed to know our names and our addresses. Bread,
meat, poultry, fish and small haberdashery items were brought
to the door, as, of course, was milk, served straight from the
metal bucket, ladled with a little wire-handled can into a suitably
sized china jug."
Irene Cooke was a pupil from 1934-37. "Acocks Green was
still known as a village in the 1930s. As my father had a newsagent's
shop it meant we knew quite a number of people. Shopkeepers were
loyal to one another. Life was quite leisurely before the war
and in the advent of war we helped one another. Acocks Green was
on the edge of Birmingham then, and at Olton Hollow there were
no street lights until you neared Solihull, and it remained like
this until after the war. Milk was delivered by a milk float and
parcels were often delivered by rail, particularly to Owens the
ironmongers, opposite my father's shop. If Sunday papers had not
been sold by 1 p.m. when the shop closed, these were put in a
rack outside and customers took a paper and put the money through
the letterbox. When the shop windows were blown out during the
war, which happened twice, not a thing was stolen from the shop."
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