foundress

[ foun-dris ]

/ ˈfaʊn drɪs /

a woman who establishes something, as an institution or religious order; founder.

Origin of foundress

1400–50; late Middle English founderesse; see founder¹, -ess

See -ess.

The Queen of England is gone, and in her stead is seen the foundress of Chaillot.

Henrietta Maria |Henrietta Haynes
For two hundred years after the death of the foundress, the abbey of monks and nuns went on with its pious works and ways.

Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely |Rev. Edward Conybeare.
Then, she might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Ann Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect.

The Scarlet Letter |Nathaniel Hawthorne
Here once was sheltered the sarcophagus of marble that held the body of the Foundress of the Abbey.

Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely |Rev. Edward Conybeare.

She is the foundress of the establishment, the mother of the actual workers, the grandmother of the present grubs.

Bramble-bees and Others |J. Henri Fabre