The Society of the Sacred Mission (SSM) is an Anglican religious order founded by Fr Herbert Hamilton Kelly in 1893.
The Society had its beginnings in the 1880s when the Bishop of the newly established Anglican mission in Korea asked Kelly to train men for work in his diocese. Originally known as the ‘Corean Missionary Brotherhood’ the name was changed to the Society of the Sacred Mission in 1892, as the focus of the work shifted to training clergy for the Church of England. In 1893, Kelly and two others were clothed as the first novices.
From these small beginnings at Vassall Road in South London, the Society soon began to grow, moving first to Mildenhall, Suffolk, in 1897 and then Kelham Hall, Nottinghamshire, in 1903, where the community remained until 1973.
For much of its history the primary work of the Society was running theological colleges, first at Kelham and later in Australia. In 1902 the Society established its first missionary house in South Africa (Modderpoort and, in 1904, a second at Teyateyaneng, Basutoland). Today the SSM provinces in Southern Africa and in Australia are separate organisations, sharing a common name and history, but otherwise completely autonomous.
A distinguishing feature of SSM from its earliest days was the background of its members. Many were drawn from the lower middle or working classes and had only received an elementary education. One of the aims stated in the Constitution was ‘training those of whom at present use cannot be made or is not made, whether through their lack of means or of education, or through other causes’. Early recruits included carpenters, shop assistants, clerks, teachers and journalists.
The Society survived a constitutional crisis in 1920 and the college continued to grow for the next forty years. A succession of visitors made their way to Kelham in what has been described as its ‘Golden Age’. These included T.S. Eliot and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Society also fostered theologians, educators and writers such as Gabriel Hebert, David Jenks, Reginald Tribe and George Every.
Over the years, the Society opened priories in various parts of England including Nottingham, the Liverpool docks, Bedminster in Bristol and Sheffield. By the mid-1960s, in common with other religious institutions, numbers had declined at Kelham and it was closed as a theological college in 1972. SSM continued to run priories in various parts of England, often combined with offering chaplaincy in university settings, such as Lancaster (1969-1990), Sheffield (1973-1980), and Willen (1973-2019), where they were invited to provide a ‘still centre on the edge of a new city’.
The closure of Kelham brought to an end the Society’s work of training priests through the theological college system; consequently the whole charism of SSM had to be reconsidered. This occurred against the background of the challenges facing the Society after the loss of the natural recruiting ground for membership that had been provided by Kelham.
The post-Kelham era saw a great deal of experimentation in different ways of being SSM. Over a period spanning more than 45 years, various forms of community evolved at Willen, including the ‘The Well’ project which ran from the late 1980s until the early 2000s. During the final phase of its existence, life at Willen reverted to a more traditional form of religious community, before declining numbers precipitated its closure in 2019.
The last priory to be established was in Durham where, in the 1980s, SSM took on the task of providing pre-theological training for would-be ordinands who lacked the necessary background to go into the selection process. St Antony’s then developed into an Ecumenical Spirituality Centre, which continued until 2018, when it was brought back into being a direct operation of SSM. St Antony’s is now the only remaining SSM centre, and offers retreats, spiritual direction, and training for spiritual directors.
Most recently, the Herbert Kelly Institute for Anglican Religious Life has been established at St Antony’s, with a vision to both preserve the legacy and inform the future of religious life in the Church of England.
The motto of the Society of the Sacred Mission is: Ad gloriam Dei in eius voluntate (To the glory of God in the doing of his will). Fr Kelly described it as ‘an idea in the working’, one that continues to evolve as we seek to discern God’s will today. Thus, the Society has continued engaging in the sacred mission in a wide variety of ways, seeking always for whatever new opportunities for glorifying God he may give.