The Franciscan Missionaries of Saint Joseph (Rescue Sisters) are one of two congregations of sisters founded in the Diocese of Salford.

The congregation is founded

In the 19th century Alice Ingham ran the family shop in Yorkshire Street, Rochdale. She was born in 1840 and baptised in St John’s RC Church, Rochdale.

In 1871, Alice and a small group of women formed a little group of Franciscan Tertiaries, guided by Father Gomair Peters OFM, from Gorton Monastery. The group worked with marginalized people in St John’s parish and in the town of Rochdale. William Turner, first bishop of Salford, was approached about forming the little group into a Congregation of Religious Sisters, but the Bishop died suddenly, before giving Alice an answer. She therefore had to approach his successor, Bishop Herbert (later Cardinal) Vaughan.

The new bishop had already founded St Joseph’s Society for the Foreign Missions in Mill Hill, London. In 1878 he asked Alice and her group to help in this work, to be to his Missionary priests what the Daughters of Charity were to the Vincentian Fathers. With great faith Alice and her companions moved to Mill Hill, and later made religious Profession there, thus founding a new Religious Congregation. In 1885 five of the sisters went to work with the Mill Hill Missionaries in what is now East Malaysia, and worked there until 1978 when they had to withdraw because of the political situation there. Other overseas missions were also founded.