Obituary of Sister Anthony SND MBE

Sister Anthony Wilson SND, former Head of the Art Department at Notre Dame Training College and Art Director at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, died peacefully in the early hours of Sunday 1 January aged 99 and had been a Sister of Notre Dame for 78 years.

Sister Anthony was born in Liverpool, near the Anglican Cathedral, on 10 February 1923. When she was five years old the family moved to the West Derby area of Liverpool. She attended Broughton Hall School and later Seafield Convent after her family moved to Crosby.

In 1941 she began studying art, craft and geography at Notre Dame Training College, Mount Pleasant and after completing her course in 1943 began teaching in the kindergarten of the Mount Pleasant High School. She then felt the need to follow her vocation and entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Notre Dame at Ashdown.

Sister Anthony made her first vows in 1947 and was missioned to teach infants in London. She returned to Mount Pleasant in 1948 to teach art in the High School and also studied part time for a graduate degree and post-graduate diploma at the art school. In 1955 she moved to the College to teach and was appointed Head of the Art Department.

It was tribute to her work that by 1980 when Notre Dame merged with Christ’s College and moved to the same site as St Katherine’s College, the art department was the third largest in the college with eight staff, ten studios and student numbers that equalled Christ’s and St Katherine’s put together. It was at that time after 25 years as head of the art department Sister Anthony retired.

Hearing that she was leaving Mount Pleasant, the then Administrator of the Metropolitan Cathedral, Monsignor (later Bishop) Vincent Malone, asked her if she would consider becoming Art Director at the Cathedral. She accepted but first spent a few months in Rome where she looked after the Notre Dame house.

She started work at the Cathedral on 31 March 1981, literally from scratch as there was nothing in place and nowhere for her to work. She recalled, ‘in the end I found a space, a mezzanine area over the crypt, and I turned it into a beautiful studio, a gorgeous room.’ That studio rapidly became a hive of activity, especially with the visit of Pope St John Paul II taking place a little over a year later. The work of Sister Anthony and her volunteers became famous and as well as creating the banners which hang in the Cathedral, including the great banner commemorating that 1982 Papal Visit, commissions were also accepted from churches throughout the country.

In 1989 she was closely involved in the complex transfer of the magnificent Pentecost mosaic from Holy Ghost Church, Ford, to the Metropolitan Cathedral. She had known the Hungarian artist, Georg Mayer-Marton, when he had been senior lecturer at Liverpool College of Art where he had introduced the new subject of mural art.

Sister Anthony created her own community of volunteers at the Cathedral including her Friday evening group, especially for young people. Although busy she never forgot her pastoral vocation and was always ready to listen to and help those around her.

In 1998 she was appointed MBE for services to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King and was invested by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

She continued to work at the Cathedral, gradually handing over to those whom she had trained, until her late eighties and then retired and lived in the Notre Dame community in Childwall. She kept in touch with many of her friends, providing a listening ear, and in her later years was united with them in prayer.

Her funeral Mass was celebrated in the Chapel of the Notre Dame Convent in Childwall on Tuesday 17 January prior to burial at Parbold.

BBC ‘Songs of Praise’ presenter Pam Rhodes was a friend of Sister Anthony for many years and paid this tribute:

‘Sister Anthony was one of the first people I met through my role as television presenter on “Songs of Praise”, but that was the start of a wonderful friendship that’s lasted more than thirty years. What an engaging, inspirational, creative and skilful lady Sister Anthony was - and I will cherish my memories of her as much for the insight and wisdom in faith she gave me, as for the tips she’s shared on how to make the creamiest coffee and the best Coronation Chicken. After a life devoted to the God she loved, she is now with her Lord who blessed her long life and ministry for the benefit of so many.’