Caroline Bowden is Principal Investigator and Research Fellow of the AHRC-funded project:  Who were the Nuns? A prosopographical study of the English convents in exile in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  The project, based at Queen Mary University of London has received funding of £700,000 from September 2008 to study the membership of the convents and their supporting networks. The website is being substantially developed to incorporate new work from the funding extension. During the period from the mid-sixteenth century when it was illegal to establish a convent in England, twenty two convents were founded on the continent and around 4000 women were professed.  The convents became significant cultural centres, fostering the education of Catholic girls, making collections of books, commissioning works of art and maintaining substantial buildings. In spite of wars and natural disasters, sources revealing much about the importance of the members of these convents have survived. The project website is at http://wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk