Hannah May Thom
by Margaret Donnelly

I can recall asking my Mam who the "Lady of the Fountain' was? She
told me that the Lady was an angel sent to Holy Cross parish, to 
care and nurse the sick and destitute.

Over a century ago, the parish was largely made up of Irish 
immigrants who had fled the awful famine. Hannah May Thom's 
kindness so moved the poor and sick of Irish Catholics, that after 
her death, they saved all their coppers, week in and week out, 
until they had enough to erect a fountain and statue in her honour.

Hannah May Thom, a non Catholic, was a wealthy, well educated lady 
and was a member of the Rathbone family, one of the wealthiest in 
Liverpool. At that time they amassed a vast amount of wealth 
through commerce. After their own needs were met, (their Christian 
values, of which they were noted for), they gave their surplus 
riches to the poor to improve their quality of life. Although non 
conformists, they saw all people as god's children and so they 
poured their energy, as well as their money, into a wide range of 
charitable causes, one being the poor, sick and infirm parishioners 
of Holy Cross. 

Hannah May Rathbone married the Rev Thom. A Unitarian Minister. He 
founded a non-sectarian charity, The Ministry of the Poor, which in 
turn helped the most deprived areas in the city of Liverpool. It 
was at this time that Hannah May became aware of the terrible 
plight of the people of Holy Cross. Soon she was a familiar figure 
moving freely amongst the sick, learning all the skills of a nurse. 
She tended high fevered victims, which were at epidemic levels, 
delivered babies into the world and comforted the dying.

She knew that there was a desperate need for trained nurses and 
midwives and so she then became Superintendent of the Nurses 
Training School where she and her team toiled in the squalor of 
overcrowded courts and cellars that were crawling with vermin. As 
an educated and wealthy young woman, Hannah May Thom did not have 
to nurse the dying, the poor, filthy and diseased, because she was 
'well born', but felt it was her vocation to become a nurse.

Another nurse who was attracting all the headlines was Florence 
Nightingale who was in the thick of the Crimea War. Hannah May Thom 
had been nursing in the slums of downtown Liverpool for over twenty 
years before she died in 1872 at the age of 55. She was the lady 
Superintendent of Nurses for the Marybone area. More importantly, 
in a fiercely sectarian locality, she had well and truly crossed 
the religious divide and had become a widely respected and much 
loved lady.

It was the poor of Holy Cross who had raised the fountain in her 
memory. It originally bore a simple but patently sincere 
inscription. "This fountain was erected to the memory of Hannah May 
Thom, born November 24th 1817 - died 1872, by the many friends in 
this neighbourhood whom she visited in sickness and sorrow".

Despite the sectarian violence that sadly occurred from time to 
time in that locality, the statue remained undamaged. However, that 
is not to say it was untouched by controversy.

Although the 1929 Catholic Emancipation act had given Catholic more 
freedom, some curbs still remained. Priests were not allowed to 
wear traditional clerical garb or their vestments in the streets. 
Nor was the host or any objects of a religious nature to be worn in 
procession through the streets. 

In the first decade of the 20th century at the Eucharistic 
Conference, held in London, the Catholic hierarchy changed these 
restrictions, the Protestant establishment had with no less 
determination resisted any change in law or practice. The Diamond 
Jubilee of Holy Cross in 1909 was seen by Catholics and Orangemen 
alike as a trial of strength and 4,500 people took part in the May 
procession. Statues and Stations of the Cross were carried, altar 
boys dressed in surplices, Lay Brothers dressed as monks, two 
priests wore cassocks and many more wore morning suits.

At the time, the Bishop of Liverpool rode in an open carriage. 
Provocative as it was to the Orangemen, as it was, the clergy were 
not vested and there was no open show of worship. .And so the Chief 
Constable deemed there was nothing unlawful or nothing he knew 
about, but there was one thing untoward, Hannah May's statue and 
fountain had been converted to an altar. Had he been informed he 
would certainly have forbidden it. However because the statue was 
connected to the water supply the organisers had wisely taken the 
precaution of obtaining permission to use the fountain as an altar. 
This was not from the Chief Constable but from the water authority.

During the year of 1987, Father Connor Murphy and the parishioners 
of Holy Cross took a decision that the Hannah May Thom statue 
should be brought out of one of the confessional boxes in the 
church were it lay for safe keeping for many years. It was in a 
sorry state of condition and was to be restored to its former 
glory. The city council granted permission for the monument to be 
relocated to the garden of Mazenod Court - a residential home for 
the elderly.

In a ceremony attended by the local community, the clergy of Holy 
Cross and Hannah May's family, the Rathbones unveiled the monument. 
Without a doubt. I am sure the new location would well have pleased 
that wonderful lady.

November 2004

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More pictures and information:

(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)
(11)	(12)	(13)	(14)	Hannah May Thom, story by Margaret Donnelly (15)
Hannah May Thom, story by Tom Kelly (16)	Hannah May Thom, story by Dolly Lloyd (17)