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Janet Stuart was born on November 11th 1857, in the Anglican Rectory at Cottesmore, Rutland, the youngest of 13 children. As a child of thirteen she set out on a solitary quest for truth, having been roused to the great venture by a casual remark of one of her brothers, that Aristotle held that every rational creature must have a last end. The search occupied several years, and landed her in the Catholic Church at the age of twenty-one.
Three and a half years later she entered the Society of the Sacred Heart at Roehampton, where she was to spend the greater part of her religious life.
Named Mistress of Novices immediately after her profession, she became Superior Vicar in 1894. She held this post for seventeen years in which peace was her gift to all who came near her. Having acquired the art of managing her own soul and of living from moment to moment on the Will of God, she directed all her energies to helping others to do likewise.
A born leader and educator, she was at the same time an ideal friend.
In 1911, she was elected Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart, and left Roehampton to take up her residence in the Mother House, then in Brussels. The last three years of her life were spent in visiting the convents of her Order in all parts of the world. The close of her long journeys coincided with the outbreak of war in 1914. Leaving Brussels where she could no longer keep in touch with her convents, she returned to Roehampton.
But, her lifes work was finished and she died on October 21st. 1914, aged 57.
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