Rosamond Stephen

Rosamond Emily Stephen (1868–1951), was an English-born, lay missionary in the Church of Ireland in Belfast and advocate of ecumenism.[1] [2]

Biography

Rosamond was born in England in 1868, the daughter of Mary Richenda Cunningham (1829–1912) and James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894). Her sister was the principal of Newman College Cambridge Katharine Stephen (1856-1924). Her initial visits to Ireland were holidays in County Kerry and County Louth.

In 1903, Miss Stephen along with Rev. Raymond Orpen, founded the Guild of Witness (later called the Irish Guild of Witness), to promote the Irish dimension of the Church of Ireland and in 1918 created the Irish Guild of Witness Library[3] In 1921 Stephen moved to Dublin, living in Ardfeenish, 21 Mount Street, bringing with her books from the Irish Guild of Witness, it became the Ardfeenish Library.

In 1931, she donated some 5000 books on the Bible and theology, from the Irish Guild of Witness, to the church, and in 1932, the Representative Church Body (RCB) Library was established in St. Stpehen's Green, Dublin.[4] She later added some 10000 volumes from her father Sir James Fitzjames Stephen and her grandfather Sir James Stephen a former professor of modern history at Cambridge. In 1969, the Library was moved to the site of the Divinity Hostel (now the Church of Ireland Theological Institute) in Churchtown. Over the years the RCB Library became the central repository for local (parish) and national Church of Ireland documents.[5]

She was a cousin of the writer Virginia Woolfe.[6]

References
  1. 'An Englishwoman in Belfast - Rosamond Stephen's Record of the Great War', Edited by Oonagh Walsh, Cork University Press, 2001.
  2. the Words of Rosamond Stephen, Voices 16, BBC.
  3. History RCB Library, Church of Ireland, www.ireland.anglican.org.
  4. 90 years of the RCB Library, Diocese of Down and Dromore, December 2, 2022.
  5. The importance of parish records: the case of Shrule, County Longford, Church of Ireland Historical Society, September 27, 2018.
  6. [https://doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9781942954088.003.0009 Woolf’s Imperialist Cousins: Missionary Vocations of Dorothea and Rosamond Stephen] by Eleanor McNees, 2016.
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