Harriet Monsell of Clewer
26 March -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Religious, page 494
Of Irish parentage, Harriet Monsell (née O'Brien) was
born in 1811. After the death of her clergyman husband, she
went to work in a penitentiary at Clewer near Windsor.
Here, under the guidance of the local Vicar, T T Carter, she
was professed as a Religious in 1852 and became the first
Superior of the Community of St John the Baptist. Under her
care, the community grew rapidly and undertook a range of
social work in a variety of locations, with foundations in
India and America by the 1880s. The sisters cared for
orphans, ran schools and hospitals, and opened mission
houses in parishes. In 1875 Mother Harriet retired as
Superior through ill-health, moving to a small hermitage in
Folkestone, where she died on Easter Day 1883.