Fallen: The Clewer House of Mercy 1848-1954
24 Mar - 26 Jun, Tue-Fri
A free exhibition exploring how one institution helped women transform their lives.
Available to view during our opening hours: Tuesday to Thursday 09:00-17:00; Friday 09:00-16:30.
In 1848, Mariquita Tennant, a Windsor widow, took a young woman into her own home. Marianne George had been abused by her stepfather, by whom she had four children. Marianne was soon joined by other young women, several of whom came from a brothel in Windsor which one of the girls called “a most dreadful place, a perfect Hell”.
Within four years, the House of Mercy became one of the leading institutions of its kind in England. It was intended as a place of refuge for women from prostitution and sexual exploitation – the ‘fallen’ women of their generation.
As penitents, they received religious tuition and worked at laundry and needlework. The majority went on to find work and re-establish themselves in ‘respectable’ life, while a few took vows to stay permanently as Magdalens, junior members of the House’s governing Anglican Sisterhood, the Community of St John Baptist. Over the next century, the House of Mercy offered refuge and a second chance to thousands of women.
’Fallen’ details the women who founded the institution, the women who experienced it, and life in the House of Mercy. It includes the personal testimony of one woman who was Penitent, Magdalen and Sister of the Community: Moira Andrews. Moira was admitted to the London Diocesan Penitentiary, a daughter house of Clewer, as a penitent in 1929 aged 18. She chose to stay as a Magdalen, moving to run the laundry at Clewer after the London house closed. Then, in 1959, she felt called to become a Sister of the Community.
The exhibition also explores how the Community broadened its horizons into other forms of charitable work such as children’s homes, education and medical work, both in the UK and overseas.
’Fallen’ is accompanied by the publication later this spring of the first volume of the penitents’ roll book, 1848-1883, together with personal stories of the first penitents, by the Berkshire Record Society.