The Victorian Mother Theresa

Today marks the death of Elizabeth Prout (1820-1864), known as the Mother Theresa of Victorian England. Born in Shropshire to working-class parents, she converted to Catholicism in her early twenties. She joined a religious community but was dismissed on account of poor health. (For much of her life she struggled with tuberculosis.) After she left the convent, Elizabeth became a teacher in Manchester, then a booming urban center. One observer said it was hard to “convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness.” Soon she gathered a group of women together for prayer and service; in 1852 they formed the Sisters of the Holy Family. They taught school, did some vocational training, visited the poor, and opened homes for working women. During plague epidemics they nursed the sick at risk to their own lives. In 1863 the community was affiliated with the Passionists thanks to the help of Father Ignatius Spencer, also a convert (and triple-great-uncle of Princess Diana). In 1864 tuberculosis caught up with her, and she died in the slums where she had ministered to the poor for two decades.