Frances Bedingfeld

Frances Bedingfeld, I.B.V.M. (1616–1704) led the first foundation in England of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, better known as the Sisters of Loreto, which had been founded by the Venerable Mary Ward.

Frances was the daughter of Francis and Katherine Fortescue Bedingfeld. Born in Norfolk, England, in 1616, she came from a recusant family which had remained Roman Catholic through the Reformation. She and her 11 sisters all entered religious orders. Sent to the continent for her education due to the Penal Laws then in effect, Bedingfeld enrolled at the school run by the Institute in Munich, then in the Electorate of Bavaria, known there as the "English Ladies". She later entered the Institute herself in Rome and was professed in September 1633 in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. She later became the superior of the mother house of the order in Munich.

After spending a number of years teaching at the school, due to a request of Queen Catherine of Braganza in 1669 Bedingfeld was sent back to England to found a school of the Institute in London. With a group of other English Sisters, she set up a school for young women, first at St. Martin's Lane, with the support of the Queen. Once back in England, due to continued persecution, she wore a plain gray dress and used the alias of "Mrs Long".Upon the death of Charles II, finding their tenure so near to the court to be rather unsecure, Frances Bedington secured, with the help of the Queen Dowager, a large house at Hammersmith with a spacious garden.

From this community, she founded Bar Convent in York in 1677, at the invitation of Sir Thomas Gascoigne. This was the first Convent to be opened in England after the dissolution of Monasteries in 1536 by Henry VIII. First they set up a boarding school for Catholic girls, and this was followed in 1699 by a free day school. Although the convent school was closed in 1985, Bar remains the oldest surviving Roman Catholic convent in England. Both houses continued despite frequent harassment by local authorities for their ties to the Catholic Church, being suspected of harboring Catholic priests. Bedingfeld supervised both communities until 1686, when she settled in York.

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