SHE WAS too nervous to speak to a group of women from her husband’s church at Old Alresford in 1876 but nine years later Mary Sumner was talking to a bishop.

Mary, who died on August 11, 1921, is remembered as the founder of the Mothers’ Union, a Christian organisation which, despite its Petersfield group closing at the beginning of this month, continues to thrive both in Britain and abroad.

Mary’s husband, George, was the son of the Bishop of Winchester and a distant relative of anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. He became Rector of Old Alresford in 1851 and it was when their daughter, Margaret, had a child that Mary was inspired to gather women from the parish for mutual support.

She was too shy to speak to them when the women arrived at the Rectory but she gained more confidence and the Mothers’ Union began to spread in the Winchester diocese.

In 1885, she was part of the audience in the Portsmouth Church Congress. The Bishop of Newcastle, Ernest Wilberforce, had been asked to address the women churchgoers but invited Sumner to speak in his stead.

She gave a passionate address about national morality and the importance of women’s vocation as mothers to change the nation for the better, which led to the movement growing and support from Queen Victoria.