The Community of St John Baptist (CSJB), also known as the Sisters of Mercy, or formerly Clewer Sisters, is an Anglican religious order of Augustinian nuns.
The Community of St John Baptist (CSJB), also known as the Sisters of Mercy, or formerly Clewer Sisters, is an Anglican religious order of Augustinian nuns.
The Community was founded in England in 1852 by Harriet Monsell (the first Superior), a clergy widow, and Thomas Thellusson Carter, a priest at St Andrew's Church, Clewer, Windsor. The purpose of the order was to help marginalised women – mainly single mothers, the homeless and sex trade workers – by providing them shelter and teaching them a trade. The work of the sisters expanded to include administering and working in orphanages, schools, convalescent hospitals, soup kitchens, and women's hostels. [2]
The Community is conspicuous amongst Anglican communities for its meteoric rise in numbers from the date of the foundation. By the time of Carter's death in 1901 there were some 300 Sisters. At its height, the Community had some 45 priories and branch houses.
The community's headquarters were, historically, at their purpose-built Victorian convent on Hatch Lane, Clewer, Windsor, built from 1853. [3] This very large and imposing structure, by Henry Woodyer, [4] is a local landmark, and includes a highly decorated chapel, and extensive accommodation for sisters, guests, and the female destitute persons to whom the community traditionally gave shelter. [5] William Henry Hutchings was Warden from 1865 to 1884 when he became rector of Pickering, Yorkshire. [6] He was succeeded by Thomas Thellusson Carter. [7] Following a sharp decrease in membership, the community found itself using only a tiny part of the buildings, and in 2001 relocated to Oxfordshire. The original convent has since been converted into flats.
The Sisters lived at Begbroke, near Kidlington in Oxfordshire, for several years, then moved to their newly constructed convent, Harriet Monsell House, which is on the campus of the Ripon College Cuddesdon, a Church of England theological college, in 2013. They also endowed a new chapel, Bishop Edward King Chapel, for the college which will be part of the community's lasting legacy to the church after it has completed its work. The chapel has won several architectural awards since its completion.
Since 1996 the remaining sisters of another order, the Community of the Companions of Jesus the Good Shepherd have been living with the CSJB sisters. Although the two orders remain distinct, they share accommodation and other aspects of community life.
The Church of England's Clewer Initiative combatting modern slavery is funded by the community, and continues the Sisters' tradition of protecting the vulnerable and marginalised. The Initiative was launched in 2016 and the Sisters have guaranteed funding until 2030. [8]
The Community expanded to the United States in 1874, following the donation of property by the family of the first American CSJB sister. Work was needed among German immigrants in New York's Lower East Side, and the community established a mother house on Stuyvesant Square at 233 E. 17th St. The American Mother House was eventually moved to Mendham, New Jersey in 1915. In 2007, two Sisters returned to Manhattan, opening a branch house at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin on Times Square, but in 2018 were recalled to the mother house. [9]
The main convent at 82 West Main Street, Mendham, New Jersey, includes a retreat house for guests and also the community's historic church, all set in over 20 acres of land. The convent building was constructed as the Mother House of the American community in 1913. The sisters then closed down the Mother House at 233 E. 17th St. in Manhattan and moved permanently to Mendham in 1915. The Convent building was added to the American National Register of Historic Places (reference number 07000356) in 2007. [10] The architects of the main convent were Durr Freedley and William W. Cordingly. St Marguerite's Retreat House in Mendham, Built in 1908 in the 'Tudor Revival' style, was a home and school for girls until after World War II, and is now a working retreat house for all denominations. Its architects were James Layng Mills and John C. Greenleaf.[ citation needed ]
The Community no longer operates in the Indian sub-continent. Historically, however, there were CSJB houses and missions in India. Their story has been recorded by Valerie Bonham in a book entitled Sisters of the Raj: the Clewer Sisters in India. [11]
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Apart from ministries of social aid and assistance, members of the order live a life of prayer, and operate retreat facilities as well as providing retreats and spiritual direction. In these endeavours, they are guided by the Augustinian Rule's emphasis on community spirit.
Clewer is an ecclesiastical parish and an area of Windsor in the county of Berkshire, England. Clewer makes up three wards of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, namely Clewer North, Clewer South and Clewer East.
Ripon College Cuddesdon (RCC) is a Church of England theological college in Cuddesdon, a village 5.5 miles (8.9 km) outside Oxford, England. The College trains men and women for ministry in the Church of England: stipendiary, non-stipendiary, local ordained and lay ministry, through a wide range of flexible full-time and part-time programmes.
Anglican religious orders are communities of men or women in the Anglican Communion who live under a common rule of life. The members of religious orders take vows which often include the traditional monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, or the ancient vow of stability, or sometimes a modern interpretation of some or all of these vows. Members may be laity or clergy, but most commonly include a mixture of both. They lead a common life of work and prayer, sometimes on a single site, sometimes spread over multiple locations. Though many Anglicans are members of religious orders recognized by the Anglican Communion, others may be members of ecumenical Protestant or Old Catholic religious orders while maintaining their Anglican identity and parochial membership in Anglican churches.
The Community of St. Mary (CSM) is an Anglican religious order of nuns with independent houses located in Greenwich, New York, Sewanee, Tennessee, Mukwonago, Wisconsin, and also in Malawi and the Philippines.
The Community of St Mary the Virgin (CSMV) is an Anglican religious order based at Wantage in Oxfordshire, England. It was founded in 1848 by the vicar of Wantage, the Reverend William John Butler and is one of the oldest surviving religious communities in the Church of England.
John Samuel Bewley Monsell was an Irish Anglican clergyman and poet.
The Society of Saint Margaret (SSM) is an order of women in the Anglican Church. The religious order is active in England, Haiti, Sri Lanka, and the United States and formerly Scotland.
The Society of the Sacred Advent is an Anglican religious order founded at Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, in 1892 by Caroline Amy Balguy (1833-1915), and still active in that city.
Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists.
Thomas Thellusson Carter, often known as T. T. Carter, was a significant figure in the Victorian Church of England. He was responsible for reintroducing some Catholic practices to the church and being the founder of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. He also founded several charitable organisations. He was a prolific writer on church matters and a project exists to collect and collate all his writings. He was for 36 years the Rector of Clewer and an honorary canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.
The Society of All Saints Sisters of the Poor is a religious order of sisters in the Anglican Communion. It was founded in 1851 and is active in England and the United States.
The Benedictine Sisters of Bethany (EBSB) is a religious order for women within the Anglican Church in Cameroon, West Africa. Its mother house is in Bamenda. Its principal work is the care of orphaned street children.
Augustinian nuns are named after Saint Augustine of Hippo and exist in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. In the Roman Catholic Church there are both enclosed monastic orders of women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of St Augustine, and also other independent Augustinian congregations living in the spirit of this rule. In the Anglican Communion, there is no single "Order of St Augustine", but a number of Augustinian congregations of sisters living according to the Rule of St Augustine.
Former religious orders in the churches of the Anglican Communion are those communities of monks, nuns, friars, or sisters, having a common life and rule under vows, whose work has ended and whose community has been disbanded. In a very few cases this is due to the termination of the work for which the community was established, but in most cases it is due to amalgamation or the death of the final remaining member of the community.
Harriet Monsell founded the Community of St John Baptist, an order of Augustinian nuns in the Church of England dedicated to social service, which by her death had expanded to numerous houses, including in India and the Americas. She is now remembered in the calendar of saints in some parts of the Anglican Communion on 26 March.
The Society of the Sisters of Bethany (SSB) is an Anglican religious order. The sisters follow the Rule of St Augustine. The mother house is now the House of Bethany in Southsea.
Harriet Starr Cannon was a nun who founded the Sisterhood of St. Mary, one of the first orders of Augustinian nuns in the Anglican Communion and which remains dedicated to social service.
Monsell is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Sts Stephen's College was an educational establishment for girls run by the Community of St John Baptist, an Anglican convent of Augustinian nuns in Clewer from 1867. The college took gentlemen's daughters, clergymen's daughters, and student teachers.
Houses of Mercy were Anglican institutions that operated from the mid 19th century to the mid 20th. They were to house "fallen women", a term used to imply female sexual promiscuity or work in prostitution. Many women entering were unmarried mothers, an unacceptable situation at that time.
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