Who were the Nuns?

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Details

Catherine Whetenhall, in religion Mary Placida.
Born: 1699.
Died: 27 Oct 1752 in Pontoise, aged 52.

Benedictines choir nun.

She professed 25 Jul 1718.

Cellarer
Portress
Infirmarian
School Mistress
Procuratrix
Dean
Prioress until 1752

Sources: Pontoise ob 68H4: 169.

Notes:

At his death, between 1744 and 1752, Sir Thomas Windsor Hunloke left �5 a year to his sister Marina Hunloke (OB067) and to Catherine Whetenall of Pontoise (Rec English Catholics 1715, p11). His daughter Ann was (OB066) a nun there.

This lady was evidently a kinswoman of Catherine Whetenhall abbess of Brussels BB194, who was daughter of Henry Whetenhall and his wife Lettice Tichborne. She was also kinswoman of Elizabeth Anne Whetenhall PC124 who declared herself daughter of Thomas Whetenhall and Anne Saunders of Shankton and is said to have had a younger sister Catherine who died a pensioner at Paris in 1717. The three nuns were born between 1693 and 1699, with this lady the youngest. Probably they were cousins and two of them were sisters. Without further research the matter cannot be settled. One point, however, can be cleared up. Foley, English Jesuits v, 802, thought that Henry Whetenhall S.J.'s grandfather Thomas was probably father of Henry and all three of these nuns, whereas one at least was certainly Henry's daughter and all three were contemporaries. Foley muddied the waters by reference to Henry's father Thomas's second wife Elizabeth Bedingfield just before he speculates about Thomas as the father of Henry and the three nuns. The difficulty was noted in the Bedingfield Papers, p. 90 note, where it was noted that the Oxburgh pedigree of the Bedingfields showed that Elizabeth died without issue. That this was incontrovertibly the fact is shown by her epitaph in Peckham church, where she was buried aged 27 in 1664. It was written by her husband and stated that she died childless (transcribed in A Manor Through Four Centuries, AR Cook, Oxford, 1938, p. 40). Catherine had some connection with the Hunlokes, given that she and Marina Hunloke OB067 were each left a 5 pound annuity by Marina's brother Sir Windsor Hunloke in April 1752. He had a sister Catherine for whom no marriage is known. Just possibly she had a shortlived marriage to a Whetenhall before joining her sister in the convent. KKR