Society of the Precious Blood


The Society of the Precious Blood is an Anglican religious order of contemplative sisters with convents in England, Lesotho and South Africa. The sisters follow the Rule of St Augustine.

History

The Order dates its history from 1905 when Mother Millicent Mary SPB took vows in the parish of St Jude, Birmingham. The community which formed around her became established, living in King's Heath, Hendon and in 1916 it moved to Burnham Abbey near Maidenhead, where it is still based today, living an enclosed community life, within the Diocese of Oxford. Built in 1266, Burnham Abbey had been a house of Augustinian Canonesses until the Reformation.
In 1957 a group of five sisters established a priory in the Kingdom of Lesotho, which has since become an autonomous province of the Order, and also spread into South Africa.

The foundress

Millicent Taylor was born in India in 1869; her father, Reynell Taylor was an army officer. At the age of 22, she declared her wish for the religious life but became a parish worker in poor parishes in east London, Reading and Birmingham. In 1905, she made her first profession on St Luke's Day, 1905, in St Jude's Church, Birmingham. She resigned as Superior in 1942 because of ill health and died in 1956.

Structure

SPB United Kingdom

An elected Reverend Mother presides over the sisters.
An elected Prioress presides over the African sisters, whose convents are: