Reference
AU10/12/4
Title
Text of either a talk or article by Andrew Underwood on St.Etheldreda's Children's Home, Bedford and Fanny Elizabeth Eagles:
St.Etheldreda's at 9 and 11 Bromham Road, Bedford;
- No.9 was built in 1826 and occupied by Rev.James Donne, Vicar of St.Paul's from 1824 and would build Holy Trinity, Bromham Road, as a chapel of ease; No.9 was let to Dr.William Mesham, Mayor of Bedford, from 1837 to his death in 1847 when it was sold to Captain Henry Young, RN who died in 1866, it was bought by the Harpur Trust for "St.Paul's Deaconess Institution" in 1872 but was let until 1881 when Fanny Elizabeth Eagles and her community moved from St.Loyes;
- No.11 built 1827 and occupied by James Woodroffe, builder and property developer and let to Rev.Edward Swann, mathematics master at Bedford School and curate of St.Paul's, after whom the Piggot family bought it and in turn sold it in 1907 to St.Etheldreda's
Fanny Elizabeth Eagles:
- daughter of Ezra Eagles senior (d.1865), solicitor of Ampthill, sister of Ezra junior (1827-1862) and niece of Richard Halfhead, Bedford banker; family devout Anglicans and Fanny devoted herself to God at 16 and was later ordained deaconess at the urging of Rev.Michael Ferrebee Sadler, Vicar of St.Paul's in 1869. She trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital, London. two deaconesses joined her in 1870 caring for the sick and poor of the town and running a Sunday School at St.Paul's Mission in Allhallows Lane, a night school for men and boys, guilds for girls and meetings for women. She nursed the sick during the smallpox epidemic in Bedford in the winter of 1871/2 along with St.Paul's curate Harry Hocken. An attack by John Brown of Bunyan Meeting referred to the deaconesses as "captive silly women". The care of children came about by accident when a friend in Biggleswade wanted a home for an orphan girl. Eventually 20 children were looked after and Fanny Eagles' original aim of training women for the deaconate took second place.She died at St.Etheldreda's and was buried in Ampthill.
Date free text
late C20
Production date
From: 1824 To: 1990
Level of description
item