Augusta Theodosia Drane (28 December 1823 – 29 April 1894) was an English writer and

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

nun.Anselm Nye: "Drane, Augusta Theodosia..." ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)
Retrieved 28 December 2018.
/ref> She became a religious writer and a poet.

Life

Born at Bromley-by-Bow, then in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, now in London, she was the youngest daughter of Thomas Drane, an East Indian mercantile executive, and brought up in the

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

faith. She was taught initially at home and then for two years at a

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

school. Her father's extensive library encouraged her reading and studying habits. The family moved to

Babbacombe Babbacombe is a district of Torquay, Devon, England. It is notable for Babbacombe Model Village, the Babbacombe Theatre and its clifftop green, Babbacombe Downs, from which Oddicombe Beach is accessed via Babbacombe Cliff Railway. Frequent bu ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, when she was 14. Drane was influenced by

Tractarian The Oxford Movement was a movement of high church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the University of O ...

teachings and joined the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in Tiverton around 1850. In 1852, after a six-month stay in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, she joined the third order of St Dominic, to which she belonged for over forty years. She was prioress of the convent in Stone, Staffordshire, where she died aged 70.

Works

Drane wrote, and published anonymously, an essay questioning the morality of Tractarianism, which was attributed to

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican ministry, Anglican priest and later as a Catholi ...

. Her major works in prose and verse are: ''The History of

Saint Dominic Saint Dominic ( es, Santo Domingo; 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221), also known as Dominic de Guzmán (), was a Castilian Catholic priest, mystic, the founder of the Dominican Order and is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientis ...

'' (1857; enlarged edition, 1891); ''The Life of St Catherine of Siena'' (1880; 2nd ed., 1899); ''Christian Schools and Scholars'' (1867); ''The Knights of St John'' (1858); ''Songs in the Night and Other Poems'' (1876); and the ''Three Chancellors'' (1859), a sketch of the lives of William of Wykeham,

William of Waynflete William Waynflete (11 August 1486), born William Patten, was Provost of Eton College (1442–1447), Bishop of Winchester (1447–1486) and Lord Chancellor of England (1456–1460). He founded Magdalen College, Oxford and three subsidiary scho ...

and Sir Thomas More. A complete list of her writings appears in ''Memoir of Mother Francis Raphael, O.SD., Augusta Theodosia Drane'', edited by B. Wilberforce, O.P. (London, 1895).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drane, Augusta Theodosia 1823 births 1894 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism Dominican nuns English Catholic poets English religious writers 19th-century English Roman Catholic nuns People from Bow, London People from Stone, Staffordshire 19th-century English poets