History of the English Province: Fired with a desire for the foreign missions Fr. Mermier decided to send some of his missionaries to preach the gospel in Africa. But in 1842 they were asked by the Holy See to go to the vast Visakhapatnam Mission in India. Fr. Mermier, realizing the urgent needs of the Visakhapatnam Mission left no stone unturned in finding finance and personnel for the same. Gradually the Congregation began to extent its missionary work to other countries as well. The MSFS mission in England began in 1861 thanks to the generosity of Captain Charles Dewel who was in the military unit at Kamptee in India. He offered his house and property at Malmesbury, back in his home country, England to the MSFS and Fr. Francis Larive who was instrumental in initiating the process was sent from Kamptee to England in 1861 to open the new Mission.
Fr. Larive travelled to England in the company of Capt. Dewell, an Army officer he had received into the Catholic Church, who was from Malmesbury in Wiltshire. They arrived in England on 24th May 1861. Fr. Larive was the first Missionary of St. Francis de Sales to come and work in England. After a brief meeting in Bristol with Bishop Clifford, Fr. Larive was sent to be the first resident priest in Chippenham. During his five years there he worked to set up the parish in Devizes, where he blessed the foundation stone of the church on 11th July, 1864. He was well supported in this work by other Missionaries, both Priests and Brothers, who had joined him from Annecy. By 1866 he was free to start a new church and community in Malmesbury. Sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy, who had known him in Kamptee, also came to Malmesbury and set up a school. This was the beginning of MSFS in England. The work of the pioneering missionaries bore rich fruit and the English mission, in the course of time, developed into a full- fledged province.
At present, there are twenty MSFS priests working in different parts of the UK. The MSFS Priests are in the Dioceses of Westminster, Clifton, Northampton, Plymouth, Yeovil and Nottingham. They also provide chaplaincy to home for the elderly in Clacton-on Sea.
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