Honouring Our Foundress: A Joyful Day for the Sisters of St Mary’s, Roehampton
On 27 November 2025, many visitors to Roehampton High Street joined us for what was, for us as Sisters, a deeply moving and joyful moment at St Mary’s Convent – our beautiful Victorian home, which stands alongside our care home for people with learning disabilities.
We are the Poor Servants of the Mother of God (SMG), a Catholic religious congregation founded by Frances Margaret Taylor (1832–1900), whom we lovingly know as Mother Magdalen of the Sacred Heart. In 2014, we were delighted and humbled when Pope Francis declared her Venerable – the first official step on the Church’s path towards sainthood.
The occasion brought us together to celebrate the formal unveiling of a Green Commemorative Plaque on our convent wall. The plaque was granted by Wandsworth Council as part of its scheme to help the public learn more about the people and events that have shaped the borough. It was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, during Wandsworth’s year as London Borough of Culture.
We have served in this borough almost continuously since our congregation was formally established in 1872. Over the years, we founded Our Lady of Victories Primary School in Putney, and our headquarters remain nearby at Maryfield Convent, where we continue to welcome many people through our Kairos Retreat and Conference Centre.
We are especially grateful that Wandsworth has chosen to recognise the contribution of nuns and religious sisters, whose work has so often gone unnoticed in public commemorations. We are proud to stand alongside other women religious recently honoured in the borough, including Sisters Mabel Digby and Janet Erskine Stuart of the Society of the Sacred Heart, who are widely regarded as founders of what is now the University of Roehampton.
The unveiling of the plaque was led by our own Sister Mary Whelan, together with the Mayor of Wandsworth, Councillor Jeremy Ambache. We were very pleased to welcome the Mayor, who was greeted by our Mother General, Sister Margaret Cashman.
Both Sister Mary and the Mayor paid generous and heartfelt tribute to Frances Taylor and to her lifelong commitment to the poor and the vulnerable. They also acknowledged that this same mission continues today through us, her Sisters – in East Africa, and here in the UK through our social services work with the Frances Taylor Foundation.
During the celebration, we listened to a moving reading from Frances Taylor’s own Crimean War memoir, Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses, and we were delighted to be joined by pupils from Sacred Heart Primary School, who sang a beautiful modern setting of the Magnificat.
Around sixty guests and members of the public shared the occasion with us. For all of us as Sisters, it was an inspiring moment of gratitude – for our foundress, for the people we have served for more than 150 years in this borough, and for the opportunity to continue her work of compassion, dignity and hope in our world today.