THE St Monica Trust has celebrated its 100th anniversary with a landmark event at its original home, Cote Lane Retirement Village in Westbury-on-Trym.
Held under a grand marquee, the celebration included a live video link connecting the festivities with garden party events being held across all of the Trust’s retirement villages and care homes. There was also a performance by the Garden House Residents’ Handbell Ringing Group, which featured some residents born in the same year as the trust opened its doors.
The St Monica Home of Rest, as the trust was known then, first opened its doors to residents on 25 June 1925. The Home was the fulfilment of Henry Herbert and Dame Mary Monica Wills’ wish to establish a charity to provide accommodation and financial support for missionaries returning to England after a lifetime’s service overseas. Following the death of Henry Wills in 1922, Dame Monica became President of the charity and not only oversaw the building of the Home, but also its day-to-day running until her death in 1931.
Peaches Golding OBE, His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Bristol, was among the 300 guests, alongside civic leaders and long-time supporters of the trust, plus individuals and organisations supported by the charitable giving programme.
Peaches said: “The St Monica Trust is a jewel in Bristol’s community crown and this celebration of 100 years of caring is truly special. Today rightly places a focus both on those who have made such a difference in caring and supporting older people, and on the vital contribution that the Trust’s residents continue to make towards their own communities and beyond.”
Chief executive of the trust, David Williams, explained: “In 1925, wireless technology in the St Monica Home of Rest was a portable transistor radio that could be wheeled into one of the Home’s five wings and headphones connected to residents’ beds so they could listen. The Home also generated its own electricity via a self-contained power plant, was heated by a coal-fired central heating system and employed its own dentist to provide free dental care for its residents.
“The charity’s house governors, matrons, stokers and page-boys may have been replaced by CEOs, care home managers, maintenance operatives and a modern apprenticeship scheme, but what remains untouched throughout the last one hundred years is the extraordinary dedication and skill of our staff, the contribution that our residents make to our villages and care homes, and the unquenchable desire to continue building upon our founders’ vision of creating communities where older people flourish.”
President of the St Monica Trust, Tim Ross said: “Today’s event is not only a celebration of the longevity and stability of this important charity, but it is also an opportunity to rightly honour the St Monica Trust’s founders and all those who have contributed to its many successes over the last one hundred years.”
From a single care home for ladies of ‘gentle birth’ and Lady Visitors delivering annuities and pensions to recipients across the country, today the St Monica Trust operates five retirement villages and four care homes across Bristol, BANES and North Somerset, and through its charitable giving programme it provides more than £1 million in funding to support individuals, organisations, and communities across the South West.
The charity employs more than 1,200 people and supports 1,100 older people in its villages and care homes.