TAYLOR, FRANCES MARGARET. - In religion Mother Maria Maddalena, foundress of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, born at Stoke-Rochford (Lincolnshire) on 20 Jan. 1832, died in London on 9 June 1900.
Of a Protestant family, she spent her childhood in charitable works for the poor of the parish, of which her father was vicar; in 1854 she left for the Crimean War as a nurse and helper to the troops. There, contact with Catholic priests, nuns, and soldiers opened her eyes to the truth, and she was received into the Catholic Church by Fr. Sidney Woollett. Having returned to London, encouraged by Card. Manning, she devoted herself to the poor, deprived of all assistance; then, in order better to care for and educate those under her protection, she visited in Ireland, Belgium, France, Germany, and Poland the works of various religious institutes and finally, in 1869, with the cooperation of Lady Georgiana Fullerton, founded the Congregation of the Poor Servants, whose spiritual formation Card. Manning wished to entrust to the Jesuits, near whose house the new Institute arose. In order to obtain the means to multiply her houses—refuges, retreats, schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc.—she devoted herself to writing books: stories, biographies, brief ascetical treatises, by which above all she sought to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart and the practice of the apostolate of prayer. In 1864 she had begun The Month, the first illustrated periodical, with ample space given to fiction; but, having founded the Congregation, of which she was superior general until her death, she immediately transferred it to the Jesuits, who gave it a higher cultural tone (v. MONTH, THE, THE).