Dr Sue Anderson-Faithful is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Winchester where she teaches history and the pedagogy of history. She is a member of the Centre for the History of Women's Education. Her research focus is on Anglican women's philanthropic and educational activism in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, in particular the Mothers' Union and Girls' Friendly Society. She is the editor of the Sybil Campbell Collection newsletter and a joint editor of History of Education Researcher.

Mary Sumner was the founder of what would become the largest and most powerful women's organisation in the Church of England - the Mother's Union. In this fascinating, thought-provoking study of Sumner's life and activism, Sue Anderson-Faithful outlines the significant moral, educational and philanthropic influence exercised by an ostensibly non-political institution across a breadth of women's concerns. Sumner's own emotional and theological interiority is also sensitively and insightfully handled. This book will make an extremely valuable contribution to the growing field of scholarship on women, religion and associational life.

• AbbreviationsIllustrationsAuthor's NoteTimelineObjects of the Mothers' UnionIntroduction: Mary Sumner: Her Life and Work, Perspectives, Sources, Interpretations1. Thinking Mary Sumner with Bourdieu: Habitus, Field, Capital, Pedagogic Authority, Symbolic Violence and ReproductionPart 1: Religion2. A Family Affair: Mary Sumner, Religious Habitus, Evangelical Enthusiasm and Anglican Advocacy3. Anglican Motherhood for Church and Country: Mary Sumner, Religious Networks and the Mothers' UnionPart 2: Mission4. Home and Abroad: Mary Sumner and Traditions of Philanthropy, Evangelical Religion and Civilising Mission5. Mary Sumner, Missionary Mothers and Imperial AspirationsPart 3: Education6. 'Education Begins at Home': Educational Habitus, Childhood and Childrearing7. Spreading the Word: Educating the Populace8. Mary Sumner: Agency and Constraint, Reproduction, Symbolic Violence and Changes in the DoxaTablesTable 1: Activists in the Mothers' Union and GFSTable 2: Episcopal Contacts of George and Mary SumnerTable 3: Wording of Mothers' Union CardsAppendicesAppendix 1: Mary Sumner's Speech to the Portsmouth Church CongressAppendix 2: Biographical Notes on Women ActivistsPrimary SourcesBibliographyIndex