Lydia Sellon or Priscilla Lydia Sellon (1821 – 20 November 1876) was a British founder of an Anglican women's order. The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

established

November 20 Events Pre-1600 * 284 – Diocletian is chosen as Roman emperor. * 762 – During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels. * 1194 – Palermo is conquered by Henry ...

as a holy day to commemorate her work.

Life

Priscilla Lydia Smith was brought up in Grosmont in Monmouthshire, but she was born on 21 March 1821 in Hampstead. Her mother died when she was a small child.Peter G. Cobb, ‘Sellon, (Priscilla) Lydia (1821–1876)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 26 April 2015
/ref> Her father, Commander Richard Baker Smith, who was in the Royal Navy married again and had eleven more children. In 1847 her father was left an inheritance by his maternal aunt and as a consequence the family name was changed to Sellon. In 1848

Henry Phillpotts Henry Phillpotts (6 May 177818 September 1869), often called "Henry of Exeter", was the Anglican Bishop of Exeter from 1830 to 1869. One of England's longest serving bishops since the 14th century, Phillpotts was a striking figure of the 19th- ...

, Bishop of Exeter, placed an appeal in the weekly Anglican newspaper ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' which appeared in January 1848 for help for the poor of Devonport. Phillpotts's request was for new churches and education for the population who had outgrown the local facilities. This request was answered by Sellon who was just about to travel to Italy for her health. Sellon contacted

Edward Bouverie Pusey Edward Bouverie Pusey (; 22 August 180016 September 1882) was an English Anglican cleric, for more than fifty years Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. He was one of the leading figures in the Oxford Movement. Early years ...

whom she knew and he introduced her to a local clergyman. Sellon and Catherine Chambers who was a family friend took advice from the local clergy and they worked in a local school. With her father's support Sellon quickly created more new institutions. An industrial school for girls, an orphanage for sailors' children, a school for the starving and a night school for teenage boys. She started work in Devonport looking after the poor. Philpott's inspiration of Sellon led to the formation of an Anglican order which Sellon led as after a number of years there were several women working with Sellon and she founded the ''Devonport Sisters of Mercy''. Although this was not the first Anglican sisterhood, she had the consolation of merging with the Sisterhood of the Holy Cross which had been founded in 1845 in London and Sellon led the combined organisation. Even before the organisations merged they worked together. When Florence Nightingale travelled to the Crimea in 1854 she took 38 nurses and fourteen of these were nuns from what would become Sellon's organisation. One of their important early actions was to tend to the victims if the 1849 cholera outbreak which started around Union Street. Sellon led the new Society of the Most Holy Trinity from 1856 and by 1860 they had the first purpose built convent, Ascot Priory, built for the new order. The cost of this new building was said to be largely borne by Dr Pusey but another source considers that it was Sellon who paid the bills. The autocratic Sellon would sometimes use a

Crosier A crosier or crozier (also known as a paterissa, pastoral staff, or bishop's staff) is a stylized staff that is a symbol of the governing office of a bishop or abbot and is carried by high-ranking prelates of Roman Catholic, Eastern Cathol ...

and she was known as the

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Copt ...

. The order still had St Dunstan's Abbey in Devon. In 1864 the sisters were asked to use their skills to improve the education of children in what is now

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

by Queen Emma.History
, Ascot Priory, accessed 25 April 2015 Queen Emma and Sellon helped four Hawaiian girls to be educated at Ascot: Palemo Kekeekaapu, Elizabeth Keomailani Crowningburg, Kealakai and Manoanoa Shaw. Palemo and Kealakai personally accompanied Emma on her trip to England in 1865. Keomailani and Manoanoa came to England in 1867 after Sellon's visit to Hawaii to found St. Andrew's Priory. She died in

West Malvern West Malvern is a village and a civil parish on the west side of the north part of the Malvern Hills, on the western edge of Worcestershire, England. It has become effectively a suburb of Malvern and part of an urban area often called ''The Malv ...

in 1876 following fifteen years of being paralysed.

Legacy

The Church of England sets aside the holy day of November the 20th to remember the life of Sellon as a ''Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England''.Holy Days
Church of England, retrieved 25 April 2015 The sisterhood continued through the twentieth century and the last member of the sisterhood died in 2004 and she was buried at Ascot Priory.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sellon, Lydia 1821 births 1876 deaths People from Abergavenny People from Hampstead 19th-century Anglican nuns 19th-century English women Anglican saints