Sellon, Priscilla Lydia

(c. 1821–76)

   Order Founder.

   Sellon was the daughter of an English naval officer. With the help and encouragement of E.B. pusey, she set up the first Church of England religious community since the Reformation. It was initially called the Devonport Sisters of Mercy and the nuns were dedicated to nursing the sick and to setting up schools and orphanages. Later the community was to amalgamate with the Sisters of the Holy Cross and Sellon became Abbess of the Society of the Most Holy Trinity. She was always in delicate health, and her last days were wracked by pain, but none the less the community prospered under her leadership.

   T.J. Williams, Priscilla Lydia Sellon, revised edition (1965).