Isabella Gilmore, Deaconess
16 April -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Pastors, page 483
Born in 1842, Isabella Gilmore, the sister of William
Morris, was a nurse at Guy's Hospital in London and in 1886,
was asked by Bishop Thorold of
Rochester
to pioneer deaconess work in his diocese. The bishop
overcame her initial reluctance and together they planned
for an Order of Deaconesses along the same lines as the
ordained ministry. She was ordained in 1887 and a training
house developed on North Side, Clapham Common, later to be
called Gilmore House in her memory. Isabella herself
retired in 1906 and, during her nineteen years of service,
she trained head deaconesses for at least seven other
dioceses. At her memorial service, Dr Randall Davidson
predicted that "Some day, those who know best will be able
to trace much of the origin and root of the revival of the
Deaconess Order to the life, work, example and words of
Isabella Gilmore." She died on this day in 1923.