St-Francis has a strong history of sporting success in both individual and team disciplines. Sports days were always so much fun.
Timeline Explore back through the decades to the origins of St Francis School and the Franciscan Sisters Minoress. Tap the headings to show and hide the contents.
Margaret Murphy was born at Crossabeg, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland on 29th of March 1843.
Aged 27, she moved to London to join the newly founded “Congregation of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God” at Cavendish Square, London. It was here that she took the name Sister Francis in 1870.
Mother Frances Murphy began a new ministry, now known as "Franciscan Sisters Minoress", in London committed to the helping the destitute.
Before it was named "Franciscan Sisters Minoress" (in 1913), it was previously known as “Sisterhood of St Francis” (1898), Missionary Franciscan Sisters (1900) and “Franciscan tertiary sisters” (1903).
The Franciscan Sisters Minoress were invited into the Diocese of Nottingham by Bishop Edward Bagshawe and Mother Francis and her sisters arrived in Nottingham in 1897.
The sisters took residence in what they named St Clare's Convent, a cramped little house at 9 Matthias Road. They entered immediately into their ministry, being known as the Sisterhood of St. Francis.
In 1898 Mother Frances, along with 6 of her sisters, opened a convent in Oakham, Rutland. The convent was named St. Anthonys and was situated in Mill Street, adjoining the Catholic Church.
Around this time, the number of children attending the Nottingham Parish school of St Edward’s increased rapidly and extra teachers were needed. The Franciscan sisters were asked if they would help and thus began the Franciscan Sisters’ commitment to education, a service to the church and the people of God that has been fulfilled with diligence down to the present day.
The Franciscan Sisters Minoress, then known as the Franciscan Missionary Sisters, first arrived in Melton Mowbray in 1900 while remaining within the Diocese of Nottingham.
They initially moved into a small house on Sherrard Street and it soon became apparent that this was too small for the sisters, so they rented the premises at 9 Thorp End.
The Sisters then rented The Manor House in Melton and this was called "St Joseph's Franciscan Convent".
It was advertised as a high-class boarding school for young ladies Costing £20 per year.
It was in this building that our Sisters, then known as Franciscan missionary sisters OSF, conducted a school for day pupils and borders from 1901, until they purchased Tower House on Dalby Road in 1903.
Sister Rose Bourke was in charge of the school and sisters Mildred Brooksbank, Angela Shryne, Ignatius McAuley, Joseph Howlett and Genevieve power were the teaching staff.
Tower House, St Joseph Franciscan Covnent, is the Mother House of the congregation of the Franciscan Sisters Minoress.
From left to right:
Sr. Delphina, Bishop Edward Ellis, The Reverand Mother, Sr. Antonia
On 29th October 1955 the St Francis Foundation Stone was laid.
By early 1957, the school was open and teachers and pupils were settling in.
Our school is named after Saint Francis of Assisi
In Saint Francis' day, colourful fancy clothes cost a lot of money.
Saint Francis had chosen to live a simple life and did not waste money on fancy clothes. Saint Francis always wore brown.
The robes of Saint Francis and his followers were made of cloth and old clothing donated by poor people who always wore undyed brown, the least expensive material of the time.
He also wore a rope known as a Cinture around his waist. The three knots represent poverty, chastity and obedience - the three cornerstones of the Franciscan order.
In recognition of the need to provide additional seating capacity to serve the residential area north of the centre of the town, the Nottingham Diocese approved the building of a new Church on a site in Welby Lane in Melton Mowbray.
The building is a concrete-framed church typical of the 1960s and was designed by architects Thomas and Martin Wilson of Oakham.
The foundation stone was laid in 1962 and the preparation and foundations enthusiastically undertaken by a group of parishioners prior to the main building work with completion in 1964. The organ was transferred from St. John the Baptist to St. Peter’s.
In 2008 major alterations were undertaken due to the need for additional facilities and to develop the life of the community. A new Parish Centre was created and the church was extensively re-ordered while keeping much of its original character, in particular preserving the beautiful and unusual etched glass Stations of the Cross.
The Parish Centre continues was used not only for Parish functions but also by numerous local groups who enjoy the large hall and excellent catering facilities.
St-Francis has a strong history of sporting success in both individual and team disciplines. Sports days were always so much fun.
St-Francis has a strong history of sporting success in both individual and team disciplines. Sports days were always so much fun.
Every December the Catholic Schools in the county came together to perform a Christmas Carol Concert at De Montfort Hall Leicester to help raise funds for the charity Menphys. They had a day centre at Wigston where children with additional edictional needs would attend.
Listen to the Memphys Cares Casette:
Memphys Cares - Side one
Mr John White, a trustee and organiser of the concert came to see St Thomas More to ask if St Francis would join with the other Catholic schools and perform in the concert. We agreed to this and Sr Thomas More and myself went to look round the centre at Wigston to see what the money was being raised for. I was so touched by what I saw that I felt I wanted to do something more to help them raise funds to keep the centre going. So, as music was my specialty and we had some very talented singers and instrumentalists at school I decided to write a song for them so we could record it and hopefully sell it to make some money.
With the help of our deputy head, Richard Escott who wrote most of the words, “A Song For Menphys” was produced. But I knew we needed a second song in order to make a cassette so I also wrote “Gods Blessing”. A recording of the songs was made at school on a Saturday morning with the choir, what was then called the Parish Orchestra, which was a combination of children and parent instrumentalists.
One of our parent Governors at the time, Martin Boothman, set about advertising what we had done and we were interviewed by BBC Radio Leicester and BBC East Midlands news came to the school to record a piece for television. We sold out of the first batch of casettes and had to have more made. I can’t remember exactly how much money we raised but it was a project we were very proud of and a wonderful experience for the children to be recorded professionally and to be on radio and television.
These plans for the school extension dated - June 1988. The last two images show the planned work to Tower House's bell tower, and this work was carried out and the long pointed top of the tower had to be removed.
In the 80s, the School often had trips for pupils and teachers to European cities and the Alps. Here is a small collection of photos from school trips from Ryte Thew (Then Mrs Piskowyj).
Ryte remembers school trips in her interview with Stephen McGlone JUMP to time 4.44 to hear about school trips
Sr Thomas Moore was passed the role of Head Teacher from Sr Assunta in July 1984.
1988 was a year of celebration for the Ssisters and all within the St Francis and catholic community.
A publication was released "In this our CENTENARY YEAR 1888-1988, The Fanciscan Sisters Minoress" and covers the life and of Mother Francis Murphy and the work of the Sisters and here a re a few pages from it.
It was shortly before 1988 that Sr Patricia Jordan completed "The Charism of the Franciscan Sisters Minoress". This publication is available as a download from the archives and assets section
The complete PDF of "our CENTENARY YEAR" publication is also available for download in that section.
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A complete set of the digitised VHS Taped can be found on the St Francis VHS archives playlist on Youtube
The new millenium saw the appointment of a new head teacher. For the first time it was not a Sister from the St Francis Minoress, and for the first time, it was a man!
The Yellow Chair was a special part of our Heritage Project - See the video below to learn all about it.
Our wonderful play is available as an interavtive video as part of this App - Watch the full play of The Yellow Chair.
