HISTORY OF THE
FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES of ST. JOSEPH

On the 2nd May 1871, Alice Ingham, a 41-year old Lancashire woman, her stepmother and two friends began community life together. In Franciscan simplicity and apostolic zeal they worked for the poor, ignorant, sick and dying in the mill town of Rochdale. They earned their living and the resources with which to help the poor, by means of a Millinery and Confectionary shop on the ground floor of their house on Yorkshire Street, Rochdale.

Alice had been attracted to the Franciscan Monastery, established in Gorton, Manchester in 1861. She became a member of the Secular Third Order and had been encouraged by Fr. Gomair, a Belgian Friar. The then Bishop of Salford was informed of the group and their work but he died before the period of probation he had imposed was completed.

Herbert Vaughan, priest founder of the St. Joseph’s Society for the Foreign Missions, was appointed the new Bishop of Salford. After a period of testing the community’s intentions he invited Alice, in 1878, to go to London to take over the domestic management of his Missionary College in Mill Hill, London. “To be to the priests of St. Joseph’s Society what the holy women of the gospels were to the Apostles”.

On the 8th September 1883 Alice, now Mother Francis, and eleven of her companions all professed members of the Franciscan Third Order, made Religious Vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. They became Sisters of St. Joseph’s Society, Associates of Mill Hill. Their Franciscan Spirit, was fostered by the Friars at Stratford, London.

Besides the management of the College and before Religious Profession the Sisters had a separate novitiate, ran an orphanage in Hampstead and did parish work in Malmsbury.

In 1885 five Sisters went to South East Asia to join St. Joseph’s Missionaries in the new mission of North Borneo and Sarawak. On leaving those countries, by then Malaysian States, ninety-three years later they left flourishing local Congregations of Sisters to serve the Church.

In 1886 Bishop Vaughan requested Sisters for his newly established “Rescue Society”
In Salford, to care for abandoned children in risk of losing the faith.

These main branches of the Congregation were established within three years of the official foundation and continue to date except for the college management that has been superseded by the care of the Elderly.

A “defection” which eventually resulted to the foundation of two further Franciscan Congregations led to a return to the North of England, to Blackburn. There Mother Francis died in August 1890 at the age of 60 years. Her remains were taken to Mill Hill, London for burial, at the express wish of Herbert, later cardinal Vaughan.

Her successor, an original companion in Rochdale, Mother Catherine Prescott served only 7 months in office before she too died. Mother Elizabeth Smith then became “Good Mother” both to the Sisters and the children of the Rescue Society for the next 26 years.

The first community was sent to Holland in 1891 and in 1906 the Sisters began work in Ireland. Through the Mill Hill Connection the international character of the Congregation became established, Dutch, German/Tyrolese candidates joined the English, Scottish and Irish members. Later others came from USA and Philippines, Ecuador and Peru and since 1987 a number of Kenyans.

Our missionary activity spread to Cameroons, West Africa in 1925. To Kenya, East Africa in 1929, USA in 1952 and South America, Chile and Peru in 1972.

In 1925 the Congregation obtained Aggregation to the 1st and 2nd  Order Franciscans and our title was changed to Franciscan Missionaries of St. Joseph. The Decree of Approval as a Pontifical Congregation in 1929 meant separation from the Mill Hill Society. This was a legal act and did not affect the close cooperation in the apostolate.

At present we serve in Ecuador and Kenya. In the Borneo States and Kenya and the Philippines we have assisted in forming local Religious Sisterhoods.

(Researched by Sr. Germain fmsj)

HOW THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES of ST.JOSEPH CAME TO HAVE A FRANCISCAN IDENTITY

Alice Ingham, the Foundress of the Franciscan Missionaries of St. Joseph, was born on the 8th March 1830 in Rochdale, Lancashire, England. Alice was twelve years old when her mother, Margaret, died in 1842.  We do not know the date of the marriage of her father, George, to her step-mother Elizabeth, but we do know that in later years, Elizabeth was to prove a great support to Alice as she sought to discern God’s will for her in life.

Alice’s father died in 1865 and it would seem that it was from this date that there began for Alice a long period of trial in searching out her vocation.

Alice and her step-mother established a shop at 149 Yorkshire Street, Rochdale, called Ingham’s Caps and Confectionery. It was from this shop that they, and later the community Alice was to found, began to set aside a considerable amount of their income for the relief of the poor.

Father Gomair Peeters OSF, a Belgian Friar, arrived in St Francis’ parish, Gorton, Manchester in 1865. The date of Alice’s first meeting with Fr Gomair is unknown but we do have the first extant letter which he wrote to Alice, dated 8th October 1871.
It is obvious from this letter that the correspondence between them had begun long before that date. He was to become her spiritual director, friend and supporter over the years until his unexpected death in December 1878.

Alice tried her vocation with the Cross and Passion Sisters but left after a short time realising that their way of life was not intended for her. Following on this and with the support of Fr Gomair, Alice and her step-mother, Elizabeth, began a community above their shop where they were soon joined by two women and later by others sent to her by Fr Gomair.

We are fortunate in having many of Fr Gomair’s letters to Alice. Through them comes his obvious support and concern for Alice together with the conviction that she was being called to a new ‘work’ as he encourages her to place it under the protection of St. Joseph and our great Patriarch St. Francis. During this time of waiting, Alice and her companions endeavoured to relieve the poverty that was inbuilt into Rochdale and its people at that time through hard, unrelenting work of the mills whose owners demanded of them long hours and who paid little in return.

Alice was admitted to the Third Order of St. Francis at Gorton and was professed by Fr Gomair who later, in October 1874, received her private vow of chastity.

During this time Alice and her companions were ‘tested’ by the then Bishop of Salford, Bishop Herbert Vaughan. Finally, in 1878, Bishop Vaughan requested Alice and her companions to move to London to take over the running of the domestic side of the College of the Mill Hill Society, founded by him, with a view to founding a new Religious Community.

After the death of Fr Gomair in 1878, Alice continued under the direction of Father Polycarp OSF at Gorton from where he wrote to her on 1st April 1880

“I am very glad to hear that you and the other Sisters received the Religious habit. I wish you every blessing and I will pray that the Seraphic tree, which you and the late Father Gomair planted in a humble place at Rochdale, and is now transplanted into a more fertile soil, may continue to grow and flourish. May it spread its branches in different directions and produce abundance of fruits in the vineyards of the Lord.

Thus we see how in the plan of God, the Congregation of the Franciscan Missionaries of St. Joseph came to have a Franciscan identity: it came direct from Alice herself, through her contact with Fr Gomair and through her Profession as a Franciscan Tertiary. Her love for Francis is expressed also in her choice of the name ‘Francis’ on receiving the Religious Habit.

(Researched by Sr. Margaret McGrath fmsj)