Three Nuns celebrated as Extraordinary Wandsworth Women

Janet Stuart

In 2025 The London Borough of Wandsworth commemorated three nuns who lived and worked in this part of South London. These three religious are now celebrated in a new book - Extraordinary Women of Wandsworth -which profiles the lives of more than eighty women connected to the Borough.

Organised into eight sections-Entrepreneurs, Writers, Scientists, Artists, Activists, Entertainers, Educators and Sportswomen-the book brings together stories of women spanning more than two centuries.

The three nuns are: Frances Taylor/Mother Magdalen 1832-1900; Mother Mabel Digby 1835-1911; and Mother Janet Erskine 1857-1914. These three women had wide and varied careers and could have occupied numerous categories in the book. Frances Taylor was a nurse, writer, social worker and founder of The Poor Servants of the Mother of God. The tenth child of an Anglican clergyman, she joined the Lady Volunteer Nurses in 1854 to help war casualties in the Crimean War. She was quietly at odds with Florence Nightingale whose organisational and management skills she obliquely criticised in her book Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses. After the Crimean War Frances devoted herself to the service of the poor in London, while writing more than 25 books. While nursing in the Crimea she converted to Catholicism, having been influenced by the faith and compassion of the Irish Sisters of Mercy.

Many of those reading the ICN will have attended or have friends and family who studied at Digby Stuart Teacher Training College in Roehampton. The college was not named after a man, which is commonly believed, but two formidable women Janet Erskine Stuart and Mabel Digby who were both converts and joined the international order the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJ). Today, numerous women attribute their teaching and professional achievements to the influence of these two nuns. The college is now part of Roehampton University.

Extraordinary Wandsworth Women by Chris Everett, Elaine Wein, Jenni Bowley and Jenny Rossiter was published today.
ISBN: 9781398128149
Copies can be purchased from Amberly Publishing.
See: www.amberley-books.com/extraordinary-wandsworth-women.html

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