AtheistRebel

Interesting. I can remember some books and the content of some lessons/topics clearly but I'm terrible with names although I do remember all the teacher's names.

Saint Joseph's School in Walkley was part of the Global Vatican Industrial Educational Complex. Saint Joseph’s was of course a Catholic School and part of Saint Vincent’s Parish which was developed as a social work management and educational project designed to supply tractable labour to the local businesses. Most of the pupils at the school were born to 1st or 2nd generation Irish settlers. The period of the foundation of Saint Vincent’s Parish coincides with the aftermath of the Irish famine and the Sheffield Outrages. The school was part of a much larger project in social engineering and the suppression of radicalism. Namely, it was part of a specific Social Mission conducted by the Roman Catholic Church in conjunction with the local English Catholic Aristocracy to manage the absorption of immigrant Irish settlers in Sheffield. For this purpose they used mostly Irish Priests, Monks and Nuns as their agents of ideology, social welfare provision, disciplinary structures and educational services. This was during the period of the Combination Laws when trade unions were banned or restricted. Many of the Chartists and Socialist radicals and their reactionary Clerical Catholic adversaries drank in the same pubs around the Crofts such as the Red House on Solly Street. Many ordinary Irish working class had a foot in both camps. The general district where most of the Irish lived was one of the areas in which Sheffield Outrages took place. Exploitation of the poor was rife in the crude factories where horrendous pollution and industrial accidents were common and in the unsanitary hovels surrounding the area. Working Class Trade Union activism was strong and many Irish featured as union militants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_Outrages One later Victorian writer comments “Sheffield, then the capital of English trade unionism, was the only town where the decrees of the union were enforced by the blowing up of factories or shooting capitalists. Nor were these outrages the peculiar invention of William Broadhead (secretary of the Saw Grinders Union, who was heavily implicated). Like machine smashing or rick burning, they were an inheritance of the evil days of oppression and coercion. When strikes are criminal offences, and unions are smashed with all the might of law, what method is there left but outrage?” (Sheffield Local Studies Library: MP 1744 S) Saint Vincent's Church is situated at the junction of Solly Street and Hollis Croft. It was founded shortly after the Irish famine.Even in the late 1930s when many of the worst houses had already been demolished, George Orwell had this to say about the conditions in Sheffield at that time. “But even Wigan is beautiful compared with Sheffield. Sheffield, I suppose, could justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the Old World: its inhabitants, who want it to be pre-eminent in everything, very likely do make that claim for it. It has a population of half a million and it contains fewer decent buildings than the average East Anglian village of five hundred. And the stench! If at rare moments you stop smelling sulphur it is because you have begun smelling gas. Even the shallow river that runs through the town is-usually bright yellow with some chemical or other. Once I halted in the street and counted the factory chimneys I could see; there were thirty-three of them, but there would have been far more if the air had not been obscured by smoke.” The Road to Wigan Pier – George Orwell – 1937 Saint Vincent’s Church and later an adjacent school, church hall, a catholic men's club and a catholic youth club were built right in the middle of one of the poorest and most squalid slums in Western Europe where many Irish settlers lived. The area was known as the Crofts, a mixed industrial and slum housing district. It had the highest death rate in Sheffield, with one in four children dying before the age of one. There were so many Irish Catholics immigrating to the area that a separate parish was created, staffed by Irish Vincentian Priests and Monks. Later a couple of Christian Brothers joined as teachers to add piquancy to the sadism and abuse that the children at Saint Vincent's School were subjected to on a daily basis. An order of nuns connected to the Irish Vincentians is the Irish branch of the Sisters of Charity who joined the new Sheffield Parish in the early days. They had houses and a small convent close to the church but eventually moved to an old private school in its own substantial walled grounds at Howard Road, Walkley. Here they opened Saint Joseph's which started off as a Convent and Girl's Reformatory. A new church, also called Saint Joseph's was constructed on the same site for the Nuns and inmates which was also used by the local Catholic community as they gradually moved out of the Crofts into Upperthorpe, Walkley and Crookes. A Catholic Primary School again called Saint Joseph's was built opposite the main site. Some of the Nuns from the convent taught at the school. The Girls Reformatory later became an Industrial School. Lastly it became a home for mentally and physically handicapped children. This institution was the Sheffield Irish version of the Magdalene Homes in Ireland although it changed focus from time to time and was retooled to suit changing demographics. It finally closed in 1982 after being taken over by the NHS which was very concerned about the conditions and care of the residents, the management and the training of staff. The residents were rehoused to 20th Century care standards. A housing association built sheltered housing on the site of the old hospital accommodation. The Church and Convent House became a Buddhist Centre. The Primary School became an Architects design office and was eventually converted to flats. The whole Vincentian operation was to control, manage, educate and indoctrinate the Irish settlers and absorb them into the industrial working class as cheap labour but sufficiently obedient, educated and trained for the local labour market. "Saint Joseph the Worker" - Is a cult promulgated by the Catholic Church as an anti-socialist Catholic Workerist alternative for the Catholic working class. Mayday was even designated as the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker during the 1950s by Pope Pious the 12th but the cult predated that by at least a hundred years, maybe even to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Jesus and his alleged Step Father Joseph were said to be Tektons (a Mechanic and Carpenter). The Saint seems to have been reshaped as an icon for the Catholics who joined the Industrial Working class. There is an earlier link with colonialism. During colonial times a revival of the Cult of Saint Joseph developed in Spanish colonies along different lines to the early worship of the Saint by the first Christians. There is an interesting study of this. http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8074.html The Religious people and many of the teachers employed at these Sheffield Catholic schools would be called Fundamentalists these days. Below is an example of the sort of books they used and taught as part of a Catholic education. Here is the front page and a link to the full book where you can download it. The Sight of Hell by Rev. John Furniss, C.S.S.R. Permissu Superiorum New York: P.J. Kenedy, Excelsior Catholic Publishing House, 5 Barclay Street, 1882. Approbation "I have carefully read over this Little Volume for Children and have found nothing whatsoever in it contrary to the doctrine of Holy Faith; but, on the contrary, a great deal to charm, instruct and edify our youthful classes, for whose benefit it has been written." William Meagher, Vicar General, Dublin, December 14, 1855. The Sight of Hell https://archive.org/details/sightofhell661furn This book was taught to children at the Saint Joseph's primary school as late as the 1960s. In the 1960s onwards the Parish of Saint Vincent's hit an age demographic issue when most of the remaining local Catholic population near the main Church were rehoused in a slum clearance process that had been ongoing since the 1920s. Despite the fact that they had acquired a new church on School Road in Crookes, running three Churches in the face of mass defections due to the birth control question and the failure of the Second Vatican Council to bring reform in the face of conservative intransigence proved to be too much for many of the younger population and they openly defied the local reactionary Catholic Clergy and left the Catholic Church. The Mission had to consolidate their activities. They closed their three churches and built a new modern but much smaller Saint Vincent's Church in Crookes on the old site of a municipal bus depot. Interestingly the attendance at the new Saint Vincent's Church has revived somewhat recently due to new Catholic workers from the EU, mainly Polish and other Catholic immigrants, some from South America and Africa moving into the city over the past 20 years or so. AR.

There were two famous people who went to the CTS. One was Roger Taylor the tennis player. The other was Joe Cocker the rock and blues singer. Guess which one the teachers hated?

One tree for each of the pupils of Western Road School who died in the First World War.

British Columbia has the best climate in Canada. The main city is Van Couver.

St Josephs Church, Convent and Hospital was on the hill. Just below and over the road was the Primary School The Primary School building still exists but is converted to luxury flats. St Joseph's Church and Convent is now a Buddhist Centre and the adjacent Hospital was demolished and replaced with Housing Association dwellings for the elderly.

Mmm Interesting... I remember all the above teachers at St J's. Imelda Brown was particularly cruel and sadistic. The Parish Priest used to stay at Jean Pierus's overnight and boldly park his Volkswagen directly outside her house on South Road. Everyone in Saint Vincents Parish knew about it but said nothing. In those days one did not criticise a Priest. These are the teachers I remember: Miss Hodges Reception Miss Curley Reception Miss O'Flynn J1 - Ran off with a Priest Miss Watt J2 Miss Pierrus J3 Miss Brown J4 Mr. Smith - Caning specialist when the women teachers wanted someone punished very severely. Sister Agnes - Head Sister Catherine - Head Sister Margaret - Later Head These days I think some of them would be locked up for child abuse. I was one of those sent to Mass at 6.45 AM with an empty stomach on bitterly cold winter mornings. I shudder when I think of the place and I am amused that the convent of the CATHOLIC SISTERS OF CRUELTY is now a Buddhist Centre. I am not at all superstitious or religious but if the Buddhists recite mantras for a 1000 years it will not expunge the stains of cruelty from that land. In addition to the Primary School, there was the Convent, which ran a home-cum-residential hospital for severely disabled children. Before that it was an industrial school and before that it was a girl's reformatory. It was all about the management and control of the poor, mostly Irish, working class.