Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/237

 Society of Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Trinity, Devonport. Schools and orphanages were established by her, and she took blocks of houses for poor tenants, enforcing among them simple rules of conduct. In this way she spent a considerable portion of her own means, while, with her father's concurrence, the property, valued at several thousands of pounds, to which she was entitled at his death was appropriated to the endowment of the society.

Dr. Pusey took a warm interest in the scheme, and acted as spiritual director of the sisterhood. This circumstance was in itself sufficient to evoke hostile criticism. During 1848 complaints were made against Miss Sellon in the local press, and the bishop deemed it necessary, as visitor of the orphans' home, to institute a public inquiry into her actions (15 Feb. 1849). He came to the conclusion that she had committed some imprudent acts, but on the whole he warmly espoused her cause. She had worked devotedly during the cholera epidemic of 1848, and in the spring of 1849 she had a serious illness. Robert Stephen Hawker [q. v.] addressed to her in 1849 a sympathetic tract, entitled ‘A Voice from the Place of S. Morwenna in the Rocky Land,’ and she herself issued in 1850 ‘A few Words to some of the Women of the Church of England.’ During 1852 the printing-presses at Plymouth and Devonport teemed with pamphlets for and against her, and the bishop thought it necessary to resign the post of visitor to her society (cf. his Letter to Miss Sellon, 1852). Miss Sellon wrote a reply to one of her opponents, the Rev. James Spurrell, which passed through seven editions; her father published a pamphlet contradicting ‘the alleged acts of cruelty,’ the second edition of which came out in 1852 (, Bibliotheca Devoniensis, and supplement;, Three Towns Bibliotheca).

The sisterhoods continued to flourish, and branches were established in many centres of population. Some of the sisters went out to the Crimea, and in 1864 Miss Sellon organised an establishment of missionary sisters of the church of England to work in the Pacific. In 1866 and 1871, when epidemics of cholera and small-pox raged in London, the members of her societies worked with great vigour. Her exertions told upon her health, and, after suffering from paralysis for fifteen years, she died at West Malvern on 20 Nov. 1876.

[Guardian, 29 Nov. 1876, pp. 1550 and 1557; Tract of Commander Sellon; Liddon's Life of Pusey, iii. 192; Times, 24 Nov. 1876, p. 1, 25 Nov. p. 9; Men of the Time, 8th ed. In 1869 Miss Sellon was described under the name of Miss Melton in ‘Maude, or the Anglican Sister of Mercy; edited by Miss E. J. Whately,’ and in 1878 there was published ‘Augusta, or the Refuted Slanders of 30 Years ago on the late Miss Sellon and her Sisters, once more refuted and dedicated to Miss Whately, by M. A. H. Nicholl.’]

 SELLYNG, RICHARD (fl. 1450), poet, wrote in old age a poem, ‘Evidens to Beware and Gode Counsayle,’ in the Harleian MS. 7333, f. 36 a, which he submitted to the correction of John Shirley [q. v.] He is described in the title as ‘that honourable squier,’ and may be the Richard Sellyng who in 1432–1433 conveyed Bernham's Manor, Norfolk, to Sir J. Fastolf and John Paston (cf. Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, i. 164, 228).

[Warton's English Poetry, iii. 169; Ritson's Bibl. Poet. p. 101; Blomefield's History of Norfolk.]

 SELRED or SÆLRÆD (d. 746), king of the East-Saxons, son of King Sigebert the Good, succeeded Offa (fl. 709) [q. v.] in or about 709, when Offa departed on his pilgrimage. Selred was slain in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, which would be 746 (as in A.-S. Chron.) He was succeeded by his son Swithæd. Bishop Stubbs suggests that until 738 he may have reigned conjointly with a king called Swebriht (d. 738) (, ii. 32). It has been held that Selred was king of East-Anglia and not of Essex (see Chron. of Melrose, an. 747), but this opinion must be rejected as contrary to the earliest authority, the genealogies of the kings.

[Mon. Hist. Brit. pp. 629, 637; Will. of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, i. c. 98 (Rolls Ser.); Dict. Chr. Biogr. art. ‘Selred,’ by Bishop Stubbs; authorities in text.]

 SELVACH (d. 729), king of Scottish Dalriada, was probably a younger son of Fearchair Fada (the Long) [q. v.] He appears in the fictitious list of Buchanan under the name of Solvathius as the sixty-fourth king, and in the rectified list of Father Innes as the twentieth king of the Scots of Dalriada. Our certain knowledge is limited to a few brief entries in the ‘Annals’ of Tighernach and of Ulster. The year after the death of Fearchair Fada, which took place in 697, his fort of Dunolly was burnt, and Ainbhealach, the elder brother of Selvach (latinised as Amberkelethus, son of Findanus, by Buchanan, who reckons five kings between him and Solvathius, the latinised name of Selvach), was expelled and sent in bonds to Ireland (Annals of Ulster). In 701 Dunolly