VALERIE BONHAM is the historian of the Community of St John Baptist (CSJB), an Anglican community of Augustinian nuns, now based in their retreat centre at Menham, New Jersey. Also known as the Sisters of Mercy, the community was founded in 1852 by the widowed Harriet Monsell, the first Superior, and the Rector of St Andrew’s, Clewer, Thomas Thellusson Carter. By the early 20th century, there were 300 Sisters, and, at their height, CSJB had 45 priories and branch houses.

In Victorian England, the Clewer Sisters cared for women who had “fallen” in one way or another, many of them the victims of abuse, sexual or otherwise. Mr and Mrs Gladstone were among those engaged in “rescue work” in London and who encouraged young prostitutes to seek shelter with “Mrs Monsell”.

In her latest book, Valerie Bonham tells the story of T. T. Carter’s distinguished career as a mover and shaker in defence of the Catholic tradition in the English church. When he died in 1901, in his 94th year, his solemn requiem was attended by about 100 clergy and 150 Sisters, along with representatives from the Society of St John the Evangelist, the Cowley Fathers. Obituaries in the High Anglican press were fulsome in their praise. The Church Times, for example, called him “one of the greatest sons of the English Church, and the truest of her warriors. Loyalty, trust, obedience, love — these are the virtues which shine pre-eminently in the saints whom the English Church delights to own.” It was The Daily Telegraph, however, that came up with the tag “the last Tractarian”. His devotional works had “made his name a household word”, the paper claimed.

Bonham offers long lists of these works, including The Treasury of Devotion (1869), but never opens them for us. This is regrettable, as Carter, born in 1808 the son of a clerical Eton beak, was intellectually distinguished, like so many Tractarians. He took a first in classics at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating just before “the movement” made waves at the university. Having struggled as a sensitive young clergyman, he found a spiritual home in 1844 as Rector of Clewer, near Windsor, where he would support the work of the Sisters of Mercy for many years.

Adopting the eastward position at holy communion, he was careful to introduce liturgical change gradually at the parish church. Ritual was more elaborate at his two mission churches: St Stephen’s, Clewer, and St Agnes’s, Spital. As Master of the Society of the Holy Cross for a time, and Superior-General of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament until 1897, he participated in the defence of Catholic Anglicanism at a national level.

The debates and riots associated with Ritualism are well covered here. As the author of The Doctrine of Confession (1865), Carter joined Pusey and Liddon in drawing up a “Declaration on Confession and Absolution, as set forth by the Church of England” which was published in The Times in October 1873, the year before Archbishop Tait’s infamous Public Worship Regulation Act. After successive legal attacks against him as a Ritualist, he resigned as Rector in 1880, to the dismay of his many supporters. He remained Warden to the House of Mercy, however, and lived in a house specially built for him at Clewer

Bonham’s heart is with the CSJB, and it is Carter’s crucial contribution as Warden which receives her closest attention. Difficult meetings relating to the demands of an expanding organisation are described in detail, while the broader picture of social reform in Victorian society is only vaguely sketched in. This biography is very welcome, however, as the last Tractarian deserves to be remembered.

Dr Michael Wheeler is a Visiting Professor of English at the University of Southampton. His latest book is William Ewart Gladstone: The heart and soul of a statesman (OUP, 2025).

The Last Tractarian: T. T. Carter of Clewer
Valerie Bonham
Church Window Books £22.99
(978-1-0369-3256-5)
Church Times Bookshop £20.69