Ipswich pageant

By a Special Correspondent
The Mayor of Ipswich. in splendid regalia and with his complete retinue in attendance, Left the mayoral carriage outside the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Woodbridge Road, and approached the barricaded
door. r
After a long time, in answer to his attendant's insistent knocking, the white and fearful face of a young nun peered through the chink made as the door was hesitantly unbolted. At length, she disappeared and returned with the Mother Superior, who was pale and heavy eyed from a sleepless night.
The Mayor had come to make a formal apology, on behalf of the townsfolk of Ipswich, for the broken windows and other vandalism wrought by the mob of Anglican and other Protestants who had besieged the convent the previous day and continued their angry shouting. yelling and stone-throwing siege well into the night, until the constabulary, finally succeeded in quelling the near-riot. The year was 1860.
This incident was the first in a series of dramatised cameos in a pageant depicting the history of the Convent in St Mary's church the original Convent chapel but now the mother church of the five Ipswich Catholic parishes.
The pageant was part of a four-days celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the Order of Jesus and Mary, Claudine Thevenet, and the main effort for the five convent schools of the English Province. The main effort was concentrated on the foundation house at Ipswich, and included a major play during the week performed by the Convent girls. and an open day with a reception at which Sister Maureen Hurst, MBE, of the Nuffield Science Project spoke on Educationand the Corn
niunithe highlight came when the altar of the Convent Chapel was re-consecrated by Bishop Alan Clark, Auxiliary of Northampton, during a midday Mass with music specially written for the occasion by the well-known Suffolk composer Bernard Barrel!. The re:consecration followed re-modelling of the chapel in accordance with the new liturgical requirements.
Those attending the celebrations included the Mother Provincial, Mother St Agnes from the Order's school at Willesden; former head mistresses Sister Assisi and Sister Francis Bordia, both retired; Sister Genevieve, head of the Order's school at Thornton, Bucks. and 70 other nuns from 'the province's five Houses.
Over 300 from the Old Girls' Association converged on Ipsa ich from all over the country, and 120 girls from the Order's schools at London, Thornton and Willesden arrived for the Mass.
Claudine Thevenet. born the daughter of a silk merchant in Lyons in 1774. dedicated herself after the Revolution to education and social work among the poor of Lyons, and later also founded boarding schools for the French middle classes. Before she died in 1837 she had pioneered effectively in social rehabilitation.
The foundation house of the English Province was set up at Ipswich in 1860, and the pageant reflected the events which have marked the convent's history, beginning with the mayor's formal apology.