Monica Baldwin (22 February 1893 – 17 November 1975) was a British writer and

canoness regular Canons regular are priests who live in community under a rule ( and canon in greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by a ...

for 28 years. After leaving her enclosed Order, she wrote of her experiences in a series of books which received a widespread audience at the time, giving the first direct account of life in a

Religious Order A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practi ...

, from a former member, in that period. She was the great-niece of British Prime Minister

Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...

Biography

Baldwin was born in

Stourport Stourport-on-Severn, often shortened to Stourport, is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of North Worcestershire, England, a few miles to the south of Kidderminster and downstream on the River Severn from Bewdley. At the 2011 ce ...

, Worcestershire, England to Edward Arthur Baldwin and Lucilla Baldwin Livesey. Her great-grandfather was George Pearce Baldwin, grandfather of

. Baldwin joined an

enclosed religious order Enclosed religious orders or ''cloistered clergy'' are religious orders whose members strictly separate themselves from the affairs of the external world. In the Catholic Church, enclosure is regulated by the code of canon law, either the La ...

Augustinian canonesses Canoness is a member of a religious community of women living a Simple living, simple life. Many communities observe the monasticism, monastic Rule of St. Augustine. The name corresponds to the male equivalent, a Canon (priest), canon. The origin ...

in 1914, a few months before the beginning of World War I. Ten years later she began to think she had made a mistake but it was another 18 years before she left, convinced that she "was no more fitted to be a nun than to be an acrobat." After 28 years of

consecrated life Consecrated life (also known as religious life) is a state of life in the Catholic Church lived by those faithful who are called to follow Jesus Christ in a more exacting way. It includes those in institutes of consecrated life (religious and se ...

there, she made the decision to leave the life, and requested dispensation from her

religious vows Religious vows are the public vows made by the members of religious communities pertaining to their conduct, practices, and views. In the Buddhism tradition, in particular within the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, many different kinds of re ...

, which was granted by the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

. During her years in the convent, Monica alternated between the English Convent in Bruges and a related Priory at Hazelgrove Park in Hayward's Heath. In 1938, she transferred to St Monica's Priory, then at

Rawdon House Rawdon House is a former residence in the High Street of Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, England. It was built as a house in 1622 by Marmaduke Rawdon, and extended in 1879. The Jacobean and Victorian wings of the building are Listed building, Grade II* ...

in Hoddeson, Hertfordshire, and it was from there that she was released from her vows in October 1941. She left on 26 October 1941, during the Second World War.''Time Magazine'', 30 January 1950, "Monica's Coming Out"
/ref>

Work and writing

Among her jobs outside were as a gardener in the

Women's Land Army The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the ...

, as a matron in a camp for conscripted girl munitions workers, and as an army

canteen {{Primary sources, date=February 2007 Canteen is an Australian national support organisation for young people (aged 12–25) living with cancer; including cancer patients, their brothers and sisters, and young people with parents or primary carers ...

hostess peeling potatoes. Once a photographer offered her a job developing "dirty pictures" in his cellar. After that she worked as an assistant librarian and then in the War Office. In 1949, she published a memoir, ''I Leap Over The Wall: A Return to the World after Twenty-eight Years in a Convent''. The book, later sub-titled, ''Contrasts and impressions after...'' is a memoir of some of the contrasts between life in an enclosed convent and life out in the contemporary world. Baldwin relates how she could not recall reading a newspaper during the entire course of the First World War. When she entered, the popular use of telephones, cinema and radio were in their infancy; when she left they were common in England. Her novel, ''The Called and the Chosen'', written as the diary of Sister Ursula Auberon, an enclosed nun at the Abbaye de la Sainte Croix, Framleghen, was published in 1957 by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy. The book followed the 1956 publication of '' The Nun's Story'', a novel by

Kathryn Hulme Kathryn Hulme (July 6, 1900 – August 25, 1981) was an American author and memoirist most noted for her novel '' The Nun's Story''. The book is often misunderstood to be semi-autobiographical. Writing Her 1956 book ''The Nun's Story'' wa ...

, about the life of her companion Marie Louise Habets, a Belgian former nun.''Time Magazine'' article, "The Ex-Nun's Story", 28 October 1957
/ref> In 1965, Baldwin published her second autobiographical book, called ''Goose in the Jungle. A Flight Round the World with Digressions''.

Personal life

In the 1960s Baldwin lived on

Alderney Alderney (; french: Aurigny ; Auregnais: ) is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The island's area is , making it the third-largest ...

in the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

. She died in 1975 and is buried in Clare, Suffolk. In later life Baldwin moved to a religious retirement home near Bury St. Edmunds which would explain why she was buried in Suffolk.

References

;Sources *''I Leap Over The Wall: A Return to the World after Twenty-eight Years in a Convent'', Hamish Hamilton, London, 1949. *"The Search for Monica Baldwin, Parts 1 to 4" by Pauline Annis
''Stourbridge Civic Society Newsletter''
Issues 46–49, April 2009 to April 2010, with a supplementary note in issue 50, April 2011.

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, Monica 1893 births 1975 deaths Augustinian canonesses 20th-century English Roman Catholic nuns Former Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns British memoirists British women novelists 20th-century British novelists Stanley Baldwin 20th-century British women writers People from Stourport-on-Severn 20th-century memoirists

Biography

Work and writing

Personal life

See also

References

External links