The Sisters of the Cross and Passion are one of two congregations of religious sisters founded in the Diocese of Salford.

Elizabeth Prout's early life

Elizabeth Prout was a young woman, a woman of her time, with strength of character and compassion for the suffering poor that she saw around her. Born in 1820, she was the daughter of a cooper who worked for the local Salopian brewery in Coleham, Shrewsbury, where she was born. She was the daughter of Edward Prout, a lapsed Catholic, and Ann Yates, a devout Anglican, and brought up in her mother’s faith.

At that time in England, Catholics were emerging out of centuries of suspicion. Catholic emancipation had just been passed in 1829 and anti-Rome sentiment was still strong.

This was the time of the Industrial Revolution and alongside the wealth that was engendered by the huge factories and industries, social problems also increased. Rural poor, Irish immigrants, labourers and skilled people alike flocked to the towns and crowded into small streets and tenements. Disease and social disorder and unrest were rampant. Living and work conditions were miserable, women and children were the chief sources of cheap labour working twelve to sixteen hours a day for low wages. No laws existed to protect them. In 1850 the majority of the population of cities was of the labouring class without education or the right to vote.