ABSTRACT
A notable consequence of the Tractarian movement was the revival of the monastic ideal within the Church of England for the first time since the destruction of the abbeys in the sixteenth century. This was an astonishing achievement, but it was a development inherent in the outlook of the early Tractarians. English travellers abroad were impressed by the sight of Roman Catholic nuns in hospitals and prisons, orphanages and slums, while in several places in England there were now convents established by the members of French orders who had fled during the French Revolution. The first Anglican sisterhood, the Sisterhood of the Holy Cross, was founded in 1845 at Park Village West, near Regent's Park in London, by Lord John Manners, with the help of Dodsworth, Pusey, Hook and Gladstone, as a memorial to Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate, who had urged the revival of sisterhoods in the Church.
