Initially founding a Catholic order in Manchester, she then set up various schools in the area, in which she taught the children of the poor their Catholic faith as well as providing them with a basic education. Furthermore, she helped the poor in Manchester and the surrounding areas to cope with poverty and the reality of living in a both urban and recently industrialised society.

Born in Shrewsbury in 1820 to respectable, Protestant working-class parents, her father was a journeyman cooper for a brewery and she was raised respectfully and with a strong sense of moral values. However, to the dismay of her parents she decided to convert to the Roman Catholic religion. In 1848 she entered a convent in Northamptonshire which was guided by the Passionist missionaries Dominic Barberi and Father Gaudentius Rossi. It was Father Rossi who then encouraged Elizabeth to join a parish mission at St Chad’s in Cheetham Hill in Manchester where she would be able to teach at the parish school. In fact, Manchester at the time was desperate for a religious order for lower-class women in which they would not have to pay a dowry, as was the norm in the existing religious orders.

Soon Elizabeth found herself living and working among the poor in Manchester, working in some of the poorest districts such as Ancoats, Deansgate and the notorious Angel Meadow, which was deemed to be Manchester’s worst slum area. Indeed, she soon became accustomed to the working-class way of life and witnessed their daily struggles to survive in the poorest of circumstances. This was especially the case for the huge number of Irish immigrants, many of whom had arrived penniless from Ireland following the devastating potato famine crisis of the 1840s. In 1849–50 Elizabeth became, at the age of 29, the youngest English Catholic woman to found a religious order in 19th century England, which she named ‘The Institute of the Holy Family’, as advised by Father Rossi.

However, on account of there being no dowry, Elizabeth and her fellow nuns had to be self-supportive, which meant that as well as teaching religion, they were also required to earn a living. Some of the nuns worked in cotton mills and others sewed in order to make a living, while Elizabeth herself taught in many types of establishment, including night schools and Sunday schools where the working classes learned to read and write and do rudimentary mathematics. The nuns’ lives were difficult as they worked long hours for little pay in addition to their religious and teaching obligations. Indeed, the year 1853 proved to be especially difficult due to the outbreak of a cholera epidemic to which all of the nuns, with the exception of Elizabeth, succumbed and from which some of them nearly died.

Elizabeth set up her first school in Stocks Street, Cheetham Hill. The cholera outbreak highlighted how the setting was too small, especially as overcrowding was known to cause ill health and exacerbated illnesses such as cholera and tuberculosis. Therefore, in April 1854, the first Bishop of Salford, William Turner, gave Elizabeth a new convent at Levenshulme, which was a healthy suburb just outside of Manchester. Here, she wasted little time as she soon set up part of the building as a boarding school for lower middle-class girls, followed by setting up a much-needed school for the children of the poor. This in turn was followed in 1855 by Elizabeth setting up a further school in Ashton-under-Lyne and others in Sutton and Blackbrook near St Helens in 1856.

Life for Elizabeth and her fellow nuns was difficult as they struggled to remain free of debt while being self-sufficient and supportive of the local, poor communities. In fact, in 1857 she went on a mission to Ireland to beg for alms for her institution in mind of Manchester’s large immigrant Irish community. Unfortunately, her request was turned down and so by 1858 the order was in debt and was then subject to an investigation which thankfully found her not guilty of any misconduct. Working among the poorest communities in Manchester, Elizabeth saw at first hand how families dealt with poverty on a daily basis and how the poor lived in terrible conditions such as in cellars or back-to-back housing which had no proper sanitary facilities and were breeding grounds for ill health and disease.

Through her Passionist mission, Elizabeth was able to reach out and help the poorest members of society, as well as help them to embrace their Catholic religion. She was also able to promote self-help and advocate thrift, an important Victorian value, which would hopefully enable the poorest families to eventually lift themselves out of poverty and become respectable working-class citizens. Certainly, working- class Catholic parents welcomed her input and the way in which their children were acquiring an education through her work, as well as learning both the Catholic religion and the correct moral values. Indeed, the education of girls and young women was deemed especially important so that they would become good wives and mothers and thus pass on the appropriate religious and moral values to the next generation.

Elizabeth’s work was especially important during the Lancashire Cotton Famine of the early 1860s, during which the supply of cotton to the Lancashire mills was impeded by the American Civil War and an enforced blockade. Ashton-under-Lyne was especially hard hit and experienced riots and disorder because by June 1862 only 11 of Ashton’s 30 mills were operating normally. In August that year a central relief committee was set up to give the stricken mill workers poor relief and to help them avoid the workhouse, so long as they attended educational classes. Sewing classes were set up with students learning reading and writing and arithmetic in the morning, with the afternoon being taken up by knitting and sewing. These classes proved to be a valuable lifeline to the working classes and by November 1862 there were 1200 women engaged in sewing classes in Ashton.

Seven years after her arrival in Manchester in 1849, Elizabeth Prout had certainly made her mark upon the city by working with these poor communities and helping them to embrace Catholicism as well as cope with the daily reality of poverty. She was known for her great organisational ability and ran her order very efficiently, ensuring that rules were obeyed and etiquette observed as well as caring for the health of the sisters by instituting a wholesome diet. She especially championed the cause of Irish immigrants, helping to counteract anti- Irish and Roman Catholic sentiment, showing that they were hard working and law abiding as opposed to the perceived perception that they were alcoholic and disorderly. Indeed, the real aim of the Irish was to elevate their status and achieve the working-class goal of respectability, which she helped many to achieve.

Elizabeth Prout’s role and influence are remarkable and noteworthy given that the Roman Catholic Church at this time was dominated by men, so that she added a feminine dimension to the Passionist mission in England. Sadly, all her hard work and sacrifice took its toll and her health suffered especially when she contracted TB – in 1864, at the age of only 43, she died from the condition.

Prior to the late 20th century, the life and achievements of Elizabeth Prout have been largely overlooked, but a recent renewed interest in her life and her work among Manchester’s poorest communities has led to calls for her to be canonised, with the Vatican actually declaring her as ‘venerable’ in January 2021. In fact, two supposedly miraculous cures with which she was involved are currently being investigated with a view to future canonisation. However, whether she achieves the status of a saint or not, Elizabeth Prout certainly achieved a great deal during her short life, had a huge influence and made a meaningful impact upon the lives of some of Manchester’s poor communities in the mid-19th century. She should rightfully be remembered and celebrated both for her efforts and the tangible difference she made for Manchester’s poorest communities.