A CATHOLIC nun who helped bring education to the area and was buried in the grounds of a St Helens church has moved a step closer towards Sainthood as the Pope declared her "Venerable".
Mother Elizabeth Prout laboured in the slums of towns in the north west of England and in Manchester until she died aged 43 from tuberculosis in 1864.
Elizabeth, who became known as the 'Mother Teresa of Manchester', was born in Shrewsbury in 1820, baptised as an Anglican, but was received into the Catholic faith in her early 20s by Blessed Dominic Barberi.
At 28 she became a nun and a few years later was given a teaching post in some of the poorest areas of industrial Manchester, working largely among Irish migrants, women and children, and factory workers.