Mary Sumner

Mary Sumner (31 December 1828 – 11 August 1921) was the founder of the Mothers' Union, a worldwide Anglican women's organisation. She is commemorated in a number of provinces of the Anglican Communion on 9 August (see below).

Mary Sumner was born Mary Elizabeth Heywood in Swinton near Salford, Lancashire, the third of four children. Her father was a banker and keen amateur historian and her mother was a woman of personal piety. The family moved to Colwall near Ledbury, Herefordshire, in 1832, where Sumner's mother held mothers' meetings. A year after their arrival in Herefordshire, Sumner's six-week-old brother died. Her mother's faith, her women's meetings and her brother's infant death may have all inspired Sumner decades later to begin the Mothers' Union.

Educated at home, young Mary learned to speak three foreign languages and sing well. To complete her musical education, she travelled with her mother and elder sister to Rome. Whilst there she met her future husband, George Henry Sumner, the son of Charles Richard Sumner, the Bishop of Winchester and a relative of William Wilberforce.

The couple were married in Colwall on 26 July 1848, 18 months after George's ordination as an Anglican cleric. They had three children: Margaret, Louise and George; the latter became a well known artist.

In 1851, Rev. George Sumner received the living of Old Alresford, Hampshire, in his father's diocese. Sumner dedicated herself to raising her children and helping her husband in his ministry by providing music and Bible classes.

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