The ‘ministry of women’ existed in New Testament times; its revival in the Church of England in 1861 is proof of a new and growing conviction that women deserved the right to an official role within the Church. A ‘dual-vocational’ structure was developed by the founder, Elizabeth Ferard, under which deaconesses could live in community if they wished, but all devoted themselves to philanthropy and nursing. This volume records the development of communities like the Rochester Deaconess Institution, whose founder, Isabella Gilmore, kept a revealing journal. Elizabeth Ferard herself is represented by the diary of her rather unhappy stay at the German Kaiserswerth community in 1856. More illuminating are documents which chart the development of the movement's principles, rules and forms of service, and a sermon entitled ‘Biblical aspects of the ministry of women’. Meticulously edited, this volume offers valuable material for the history of the Church of England and for the challenge the revived diaconate presented to orthodox opinion – not only to the established gender order of the Victorian Church but also to conventional views about the employment outside the home of ‘respectable’ women.