A Short History of TOHP
The Tertiary Order was founded on St Peter’s Day, 29th June, 1948 by Dr Charlotte Houlton, FRCOG, who for many years had served with the Women’s Medical Service in India. She had an outstanding career, being awarded a CBE for her work in India, and later was Director of the Medical Service Board for SPG. However, Dr Houlton believed herself to be called to devote herself more deeply to a life of contemplative prayer and, after the war, conversations with Margaret Cope, the Prioress of OHP, led to her founding the Tertiary Order.
As well as embracing the Benedictine way of life charted by the Order, Charlotte was an admirer of St Francis, and the Tertiary House (on site at the Priory) was named after the saint. The curriculum vitae of her working life, as a pioneer woman medic, might give the impression of a somewhat daunting and distant figure. Her photograph, however, in the (then) blue habit of the Tertiary Order, shows a smiling woman, with a demeanour of evident gentleness and simplicity.
Charlotte and her four colleagues, the original Tertiaries, lived in the St Francis House and were known as ‘Tertiary Regulars’. These original Tertiaries made life vows, but these vows were ‘received’ rather than ‘professed’. As the Order grew, the resident Tertiaries were known as ‘regulars’: after Charlotte’s death in 1957, and with the dispersion of the four remaining sisters, it was decided not to have any more ‘regulars’.
Charlotte was to steer the early community through the first eight years of its life. She was succeeded in her leadership by Sister Anne, OHP – who became the Superior of the Tertiary Order, and this marked a change in the relationship between the two Orders, with a Sister now at the helm. The Order continued with four other Sisters who, over the years, led the Tertiaries until in 2017, when the Constitution of the Order was changed so that the Warden (as now called) should be a member of the Order, and could be male. John Bouch became the first male warden and the first (since Charlotte Houlton) not to be a professed member of OHP. Today there are just over 150 members of the Tertiary Order.