Marian Hughes

Marian Rebecca Hughes (14 January 1817 – 7 May 1912) was the first woman to take religious vows in the Anglican church since the Reformation. She was mother superior of the Society of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, which she founded in Oxford. She also founded schools in Oxford for girls and boys.

Life Hughes was born in the Oxfordshire village of Shenington on 14 January 1817. Her parents were Martha Pyne and the Reverend Robert Edward Hughes. Her father was the rector of Shenington. She had a brother and sister and her cousin was Thomas Chamberlain who became vicar of St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford.

She became the first woman to take religious vows in the Anglican church when she privately made them in 1841 to Edward Bouverie Pusey at the home of Ann and Charles Seager. She then took communion with John Henry Newman. Newman and Pusey were both fellows at Oriel College and leaders in the Oxford Movement.

After Hughes took her vows she went abroad to visit different Roman Catholic convents with Charles and Ann Seager.

In 1846 she was creating embroidered altar cloths which were used by Pusey at his home. These are extant and are at Pusey House. Her convent was operating until just after the second world war in 1946.

In 2021 some of the textiles that she had embroidered were included in a Threads of Devotion exhibition. One was still in use at Pusey House chapel after 175 years. One of the items displayed was a doll dressed in a miniature outfit as worn by her nuns. This doll was created by Hughes.