The year 1961 witnesses the centenary of the Deaconess Community of St. Andrew, the only Religious Community in the Anglican Church whose full members are both professed Religious and ordained Deaconesses. In 1861, Elizabeth Catherine Ferard, with two like-minded ladies, began to live together under a common rule of life, dedicated to worship and to works of mercy. In July of the following year, the bishop of London ‘set apart’ Miss Ferard as the first deaconess of the English Church. Thus began the Community of Deaconesses, expanding and developing during the ensuing hundred years, but from the beginning maintaining its characteristic two-fold vocation to the Religious Life and to the Order of Deaconesses.