ON June 27, 1891, the first post-Reformation Catholic Mass was said in Romsey.

Until the Sisters of the convent of La Sagesse arrived, few, if any, Roman Catholics had lived in Romsey since 1539 when Henry VIII ended the church’s affiliation with Rome.

After a failed attempt to settle in Alton, secret negotiations were carried out by Mr A. Harrington for the purchase of land and buildings in Romsey. The Sisters’ new property had been part of the grounds of the medieval Benedictine convent. It was those medieval nuns who were responsible for the erection of Romsey Abbey church.

READ MORE: HERITAGE: The history of bicycles in Romsey

(Image: Romsey Local History Society) The first six Sisters had arrived in Romsey a mere three days before this Mass. It was said by Rev. Father Lhoumeau, of the Company of Mary, and was attended by four or five lay people, one Brother of the Company of Mary, and the six Sisters. Two of the original congregation were still alive when the fiftieth anniversary of that event was celebrated. They were an unnamed Sister and a Mrs Harrington.

The arrival of members of a Catholic order caused consternation and much hostility in the town. Some shopkeepers refused to serve the newcomers. The house of their chaplain was stoned for several nights, and the statue of Our Lady was pulled down and its head discovered next day in the river. By 1892 the Sisters had created a chapel and the statue was placed upon the altar. This chapel was demolished, as were several other small buildings when a new chapel was built in 1912.

With the sponsorship of the Bishop of Portsmouth, the Convent opened an orphanage for boys, and was soon running a school for both boys and girls. The townspeople gradually became reconciled to their new neighbours and some sent their children to the convent school although some hostility continued. Some years ago, the, by then, elderly Sister Elizabeth told me that boys would throw stones over the wall at them in 1929.

SEE ALSO: Hampshire Chronicle heritage photos from the 1940s and 50s

The Daughters of Wisdom, as they are now known, are members of an international order, that specialises in caring for disadvantaged members of the population, for example, until recently they ran a home for the mentally handicapped in Sligo on the west coast of Ireland.

I don’t know when they closed their orphanage, but they still had boy pupils as late as the 1940s, before becoming an all girls school. This was closed at the end of the 20th century and sold to Embley Park school. At the beginning of the current century, it was replaced by a nursing home named after Marie Louise, the founder of their order.