Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Society of St. Margaret
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1855-
History/biography
The Society of St. Margaret is a religious order of the Anglican Church with related but independent chapters on several continents. The order began in 1856 at East Grinstead, England under the guidance of by John Henry Neale. Houses followed in London at St. Saviour’s Priory in 1870 and St. Margaret’s House in Boston, Massachusetts in 1873.
The Sisters who arrived in Boston in 1873 were invited to help minister to the sick at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, a ministry that ended in 1917. The order's mission evolved into hospital care, health and wellness of women and children, education in pursuit of community, and a supportive religious enclave for independent women seeking a spiritual life and motivation. The Boston chapter purchased their first permanent site in Louisburg Square in 1881 and began to generate mission houses throughout the East and in Canada. St. Monica’s infirmary (Joy Street) and later St. Monica’s Home in Roxbury continued in operation until 1988 as a ministry to the elderly. The other nearby institution, in Duxbury, Massachusetts, was a summer camp program for girls and summer residence for the Sisters. The Duxbury property became the permanent House for the Society with the closing of the Roxbury convent in 2011.
Other houses and missions that were established are Montreal (1885), Toronto (at Bracebridge, closed in 1944), Philadelphia (1884), New Hartford (near Utica, NY, n.d.), New York (Oliver St., closed 1956), Newark (St. Barnabas’ Hospital, closed 1923, and House of Prayer, 1939), and Lexington, Kentucky (St. Agnes House, 1975). Most notably, the Sisters established a mission in Port au Prince, Haiti, in 1927, where they opened a school for children with disabilities, founded a home for elderly women, and established an orchestra, among other ministries. The Society continues its ministries in Boston, New York City, and Port-au-Prince to this day.