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. In 1677, Bedingfeld founded Bar Convent in York, the oldest surviving Roman Catholic convent in England and also the first Roman Catholic School for Girls in Britain ( Bar Convent School For Girls).

Life 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 of the Blessed Virgin Mary 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. First they set up a boarding school for Catholic girls, and this was followed in 1699 by a free day school. Bedingfeld supervised both communities until 1686, when she settled in York. The community was attacked in 1695, at which time the house was almost destroyed. In 1699, she resigned as Superior in favor of her niece and moved back to Munich, where she died on 4 May 1704.

According to William Shiels, the Bedingfeld women "provided spiritual leadership to religious communities spread across five European states and stretching from York to Munich, as well as an enduring network of contacts for English Catholics abroad. ...and the importance of these women in sustaining English Catholicism by providing education for gentry children and hospitality to travellers cannot be overestimated."

Although the convent school was closed in 1985, Bar remains the oldest surviving Roman Catholic convent in England. But her work still persists to this day as an integral part of Catholicism in Yorkshire and in the diocese of Middlesbrough, as the Coeducational Comprehensive Secondary School: All Saints Roman Catholic School