Pam Hirsch

An examination of women educationists in nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain. Working with new paradigms opened up by feminist scholarship, it reveals how women leaders were determined to transform education in the quest for a better society. Previous scholarship has either neglected the contributions of these women or has misplaced them. Consequently intellectual histories of education have come to seem almost exclusively masculine. This collection shows the important role which figures such as Mary Carpenter, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, Elizabeth Edwards and Maria Montessori played in the struggle to provide greater educational opportunities for women. The contributors are: Anne Bloomfield, Kevin J. Brehony, Norma Clarke, Peter Cunningham, Mary Jane Drummond, Elizabeth Edwards, Mary Hilton, Pam Hirsch, Jane Miller, Hilary Minns, Wendy Robinson, Gillian Sutherland and Ruth Watts.

Knowing their Place is a comprehensive account of the public, private and intellectual life of Irish women in the Victorian age. In particular, this book looks at the steady progress of girls and women within the education system, their gradual involvement in intellectual life through amateur societies (such as the Royal Dublin Society); their emergence of independent, highly motivated scholarly and philanthropic individuals who operated within local spheres with often very considerable degrees of success and influence.

This book focuses on two educationalists, Oscar Browning (1837-1923) and Elizabeth Hughes (1852-1925) who were the principals of the two separate day training colleges for men and women at Cambridge. The early initiatives of these two leaders began the development of education studies at Cambridge University and, therefore, serve as test cases to examine the relationship between teacher training and the university. As their early programmes foreshadowed the work of the present-day Faculty of Education, a historical review of these Victorian educational experiments uncovers how the unstable relationship between teacher trainers, the university and the government of the day has affected the status of the Education Department within the university. Oscar Browning and Elizabeth Hughes were extraordinary, larger-than-life characters, who have not yet been well-served in the historical accounts. Their ideals about what teaching should be about is one well worthy of re-visiting. The colleges they set up at Cambridge acted as models for training colleges all over the country so they were an influence on the national scene. In so far as they visited and lectured in Europe, America and Japan, they also had international influence.

This book focuses on two educationalists, Oscar Browning (1837-1923) and Elizabeth Hughes (1852-1925) who were the principals of the two separate day training colleges for men and women at Cambridge. The early initiatives of these two leaders began the development of education studies at Cambridge University and, therefore, serve as test cases to examine the relationship between teacher training and the university. As their early programmes foreshadowed the work of the present-day Faculty of Education, a historical review of these Victorian educational experiments uncovers how the unstable relationship between teacher trainers, the university and the government of the day has affected the status of the Education Department within the university. Oscar Browning and Elizabeth Hughes were extraordinary, larger-than-life characters, who have not yet been well-served in the historical accounts. Their ideals about what teaching should be about is one well worthy of re-visiting. The colleges they set up at Cambridge acted as models for training colleges all over the country so they were an influence on the national scene. In so far as they visited and lectured in Europe, America and Japan, they also had international influence.

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon was the most unconventional and influential leader of the Victorian women's movement. Enormously talented, energetic and original, she was a feminist, law-reformer, painter, journalist, the close friend of George Eliot and a cousin of Florence Nightingale. As a painter, Barbara is now recognised as a vital figure among Pre-Raphaelite women artists. As a feminist she led four great campaigns: for married women's legal status, for the right to work, the right to vote and to education. Making brilliant use of unpublished journals and letters, Pam Hirsch has written a biography that is as lively and powerful as its subject, recreating the woman in all her moods, and placing her firmly in the context of women's struggle for equality.