Elizabeth Prout

Elizabeth Prout, also known as Mother Mary Joseph of Jesus, (2 September 1820 – 11 January 1864) was the founder of the religious congregation of the Sisters of the Cross and Passion.

Early life Elizabeth Prout was born in Coleham, Shrewsbury, England on 2 September 1820. Little is known of her early life, save that she was born to an Anglican mother and a father who was a lapsed Catholic. Elizabeth was baptised at St Julian's Church, Shrewsbury, and brought up in the Anglican tradition. Her parents, Edward Prout and his wife Ann nee Yates, by 1841.

Work in Manchester

On arriving in Manchester, Prout was met with the squalid conditions that the people lived in. She soon established herself in the parish by visiting the sick and poor in some of the poorest areas of Manchester, teaching workers in the cotton mills and Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine.

Touched by the misery and deprivation of the poor, she and a few companions came together to form a community to help the voiceless downtrodden workers in the large industrial towns of nineteenth-century England.

Prout felt that she wanted to establish a more regular life for her and her companions and thought first of joining an existing religious institute, but then, with the advice of Rossi, believed she was called to found a new congregation. A house was secured in Stocks Street, behind St. Chad's church and there Elizabeth and her companions lived and worked, providing educational opportunities and skills for women which would enable them to seek better work.

The life of Prout and her female companions was strict, and they laboured for much of the day in prayer and working for the local poor. The life proved so strict that eventually all of Prout's companions left her. New recruits came and a rule of life was drawn up by Rossi. The company was called the Institute of the Holy Family. Prout and the sisters received a religious habit at the hands of Father Croskell, parish priest of St. Chad's, on the Feast of the Presentation of Mary, 21 November 1852. A plaque in the Lady Chapel of St. Chad's records this event. At her clothing Prout received her new religious name, Mother Mary Joseph of Jesus.

Conflicts within the community had taken their toll on Prout's work, particularly the finances of the Institute. She obtained permission from the bishop to go to Ireland to beg for alms for her Institute and there met with Spencer. On her return from Ireland Prout found the situation even worse than when she had left. People were accusing the sisters of irregularity and so an ecclesiastical investigation began. The result of the investigation was extremely positive and revealed the deep poverty of the sisters and the sacrifices they had made in their hard work. She was 43 years of age. Her body together with that of Dominic Barberi and Ignatius Spencer lies in the shrine of St. Anne’s Church Sutton.

Passionist Sisters Spencer began to spend much more time with the sisters and as such the influence of Passionist spirituality began to grow within the community. Soon Prout and Spencer were working together on the Rule of the Institute to bring it into conformity with the Rule of the founder of the Passionists, St. Paul of the Cross.