abbey at his bedside. The monastery has throughout its history been a place of refuge for the poor and hungry. Luigi Gentili, a priest associated with De Lisle's mission, wrote that there were extremes of rural poverty to be found in Leicestershire that could not be matched, even in the most poverty-stricken parts of his native Italy. This number was increased by the influx of many Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine of the 1840s. So great was the scale of the poverty during this period that the monks were feeding many thousands of people each year. In 1845, 2,788 people were given lodgings at the monastery and 18,887 were given food. In 1847, "36,000 people received charity and hospitality from the hands of the monks". In 1848, the monastery was granted the status of an abbey by Pope Pius IX and its first abbot, Dom Bernard Palmer, was consecrated on 18 February 1849. It was united with the Cistercian congregation by a papal brief in 1849. In 1862 John Rogers Herbert painted Laborare est Orare (To labour is to pray), which depicted "the monks of Saint Bernard's Abbey, Leicestershire, gathering in the harvest of 1861, assisted by some of the boys from a neighbouring reformatory in their care". This painting was purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1972. As this painting depicts a church building with a tower and spire, it has been argued that Herbert's portrait does not represent Mount St Bernard, as the abbey was without a tower until the twentieth century and has never had a spire. However, the catalogue entry at the Tate Gallery explains that Herbert used Pugin's original designs to depict the church in line with the architect's vision. Herbert was a close friend of Pugin and had painted him in 1845. The abbey guest book confirms that "Mr. Herbert, an artist from London" visited the abbey on 22 July 1861. Herbert depicted himself in the extreme foreground. In 1878, the Leicestershire coalfield suffered a severe depression in trade, resulting in much distress being caused to the miners and their families. Large numbers of the unemployed made their way to the monastery on a daily basis, where soup in large quantities was gratuitously supplied. This practice was repeated on a similar scale during the General Strike of 1926. The abbey suffered from financial problems and a lack of monks joining the community through