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A Turning-point in the Ministry of Women: the Ordination of the First Woman to the Christian Ministry in England in September 1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Elaine Kaye
Elaine Kaye*
Affiliation:
Oxford
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Extract

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The modern debate about the ordination of women began in the early years of this century and has continued ever since. In the course of that debate, the theology and practice of the Reformed churches are often ignored. This paper attempts to remedy that defect in part by discussing the context of the opening of the ordained ministry to women in this century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 27: Women in the Church , 1990 , pp. 505 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990

References

1 Heeney, B., ‘The beginnings of church feminism: women and the councils of the Church of England 1897-1919’, JEH, 33 (1982), pp. 89’109 Google Scholar.

2 Heeney, B., The Women’s Movement in the Church of England 1850-1030 (Oxford, 1988), p. 127 Google Scholar.

3 Fletcher, S., Maude Royden: A Life (Oxford, 1989 Google Scholar).

4 For further biographical details about Constance Coltman, see Kaye, E., ‘Constance Colt-man—a forgotten pioneer’, Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society, 4, 2 (May 1988)Google Scholar.

5 For information about Gertrude von Petzold, see Holt, R. V., The Unitarian Contribution to Social Progress in England (London, 1938 Google Scholar); Essex Hall Yearbook (London, 1916); Bolam, C. G., Three Hundred Years 1662-1962: The Slory of the Churches forming the North Midland Presbyterian and Unitarian Association (Nottingham, 1962 Google Scholar); and The Inquirer, 2 July 1904, 5 June and 7 August 1915.

6 Clarke, A., The First Woman Minister (London, 1941 Google Scholar).

7 The British Weekly, 4 Oct. 1917.

8 See The Christian World, 18 March 1909 and 4 Oct. 1917.

9 Baker, Hatty, ‘An equal ministry’, in The Coming Day (Jan. 1917 Google Scholar).

10 King’s Weigh House Church Meeting Minute Book 1916-26 (13 Sept. 1917) (at Dr Williams’s Library).

11 The Christian World, 20 Sept. 1917.

12 See The British Weekly, 4 Oct. 1917, for an account of the discussion.

13 See Royden, A. Maude, A Threefold Cord (London, 1948 Google Scholar) for a short but fascinating autobiographical account.

14 The Christian World, 27 Sept. and 11 Oct. 1917.

15 Coltman, Constance, ‘Women and the priesthood’, The Free Catholic, 5 (Oct. 1920), pp. 161’4 Google Scholar; ‘The need for women confessors’, The Free Catholic, 6 (April 1921), pp. 66-8.

16 Baker, Hatty, Women in the Ministry (London, 1911 Google Scholar).

17 Ibid., p.47.

18 Coltman, Constance, ‘Women’s kingdom’, in Thomson, D. P., ed., Women in the Pulpit (London, 1944 Google Scholar).

19 The joint ministries of Constance and Claud Coltman were at the King’s Weigh House Church, London; Cowley Road Congregational Church, Oxford; Wolverton Congregational Church, and Old Independent Congregational Church, Haverhill.

20 Royden, A. Maude, The Church and Woman (London, 1924), p. 195 Google Scholar.

21 In 1987 there were more than 200 women ministers in the United Reformed Church.

22 Briggs, J., ‘She-preachers, widows and other women’, in The Baptist Quarterly, 31 (1985-6), PP. 337’52 Google Scholar.

23 See Valenze, D., Prophetic Sons and Daughters (Princeton, 1985 Google Scholar) and Graham, E. D., Chosen by God: A List of the Female Travelling Preachers of Early Primitive Methodism (Cheshire, 1989 Google Scholar).