The Community of St Michael and All Angels is an Anglican religious order of nuns in South Africa. The Community was founded by Allan Webb, the second Bishop of Bloemfontein in 1874 – although the idea was first mooted by Webb’s predecessor, Edward Twells. In a letter he’d written in 1868, Twells highlighted the need for a Sisterhood to set up schools for girls in Bloemfontein.
Three novices and three lay helpers under Emma, a Mother Superior, traveled from England to Bloemfontein via Port Elizabeth, arriving towards the end of April 1874. They immediately opened a boarding school, St Michael's, and a day school. St Michael’s School exists to this day as one of the leading schools in South Africa.
In 1877 the Community established the St George's Cottage Hospital in Bloemfontein, the first hospital in the Orange Free State.
The Community’s work was extended to the nearby mining town of Kimberley, from 1876, where Henrietta Stockdale, a sister, pioneered the training of nurses at the Carnarvon Hospital. She was later influential in securing the first state registration of nurses in the world, in 1891.
A St Michael’s School was established in Kimberley but did not survive beyond the first years of the twentieth century.
The Community still exists but only one sister remains today.