Biology class at Layton Hill with Mother Julia Butcher in 1950. Photo: SHCJ European Province Archives
And to mark the occasion, a special reunion via Zoom is taking place on May 8 for past pupils and staff.
The Society is a religious order for women and was founded by Cornelia Connelly in 1846.
She was an American, born in Philadelphia in 1809 and her own story is quite remarkable.
Layton Hill dining hall Sr Genevieve and M.M. Column in 1950. Photo: SHCJ European Province Archives
She married an Episcopalian priest, Pierce Connolly, and they had five children, though two died in early infancy.
A few years after they were married the couple became Roman Catholics. When Pierce decided that God was calling him to be a Catholic priest, Cornelia had to take a vow of chastity. She gradually came to realise that God was calling her in a new way to found a new religious order for the work of education, especially for girls, which was so urgently needed in 19th century England where
We ve never had so many Britons in line for sainthood
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The St Katharine Drexel Prep marching band at Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Credit: roberto galan / Alamy
In 1922, in Beaumont, Texas, the Ku Klux Klan posted a notice outside the church and new school built by Katharine Drexel. “We will not stand by while white priests consort with n - wenches in the faces of our families. Suppress it in one week or flogging and tar and feathers will follow.” Days later, a tornado smashed the buildings used as Klan headquarters. The Klan never threatened the church in Beaumont again.
I don’t think this incident contributed to Katharine Drexel’s canonisation in 2000. The congregation she founded in 1891 had been called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. Today, it is called the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and still works with what it now calls black and Native American people.