​Happy 120th Anniversary to Holy Name Convent POS!

In November, the Holy Name Convent Secondary School in Port of Spain celebrates 120 years since its founding!
According to archival records, Holy Name Convent traces its history back to November 1902, when a volcanic eruption of Mount Peleé in Martinique (Photo 3) led to the arrival in Trinidad of an orphaned Martiniquan child, Leonie Marie Raynaud, who the French Dominican nuns in Trinidad decided to care for.
These nuns had first arrived in Trinidad on March 26th, 1898 to manage patients at the Leprosarium which was located in Cocorite at that time, before its relocation to Chacachacare in May 1922.
Upon their arrival, they lived at the “Maison Bolivar College” (Photo 1) which consisted of a convent and small chapel around the Queen’s Park Savannah, next to the Colonial Hospital. This location was eventually renamed “Holy Name Convent” in 1889. Here, the nuns began their private tutoring of the Martiniquan child, Leonie Raynaud, which soon got the attention of parents in Port of Spain.
These parents petitioned the nuns to provide a French education to their daughters, and consequently, a private school named “Holy Name Convent School” was formed next to the convent in a building named “Pavillon Notre Dame”. Over the years, the high standard of education offered by the school led the government to award it the certificate of “Approved Secondary School” on June 27th 1949 (Photo 2) followed by the status of “Government Assisted Secondary School” in 1957.
The foundations for the school as it is today were laid in the late-1930s by former principals Sister Jeanne Emmanuel and Sister Bernadette Robert. In 1954, the Notre Dame building was replaced with the “Marian Hall” - named after the fact that 1954 was a “Marian Year” in the Catholic calendar - while the Northern and Southern wings were also constructed. They also started the annual Christmas Bazaars in 1946 to raise funds for the school, which lent to the reputation of Holy Name as being one of “self-help, dedication and hard work”.
To commemorate this milestone, the Holy Name Convent Past Pupils Association is having a reunion event, “An Evening of Light” on November 26th!
Photo 1 showing the original buildings of Holy Name Convent and its Chapel (right) is courtesy of the book, “Called to Serve” by author and archivist Sister Marie Thérèse Rétout. This book is part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Reference Collection.
Photo 2 is courtesy of the Port of Spain Gazette Newspaper, June 28th 1949 and Photo 3 is courtesy of the Catholic News, December 12th 1902. These newspapers are part of the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago Newspaper Collection.
References: “Echoes of Mount Pelee.” The Catholic News, 12 Dec. 1902.
“Holy Name Approved For ‘A’ Certificate.” The Port of Spain Gazette, 28 June 1949.
Rétout, Marie Thérèse. Called to Serve: A History of the Dominican Sisters in Trinidad & Tobago, 1868-1988: Congregation of Saint Catherine of Siena O.P., Etrépagny, France. Paria Pub. Co., 1988. (Source: National Archives of Trinidad & Tobago, Nov 25, 2022 and the Virtual Museum of T&T)