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From working parties to social work: middle‐class girls’ education and social service 1890–1914

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 38; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00467600903325275

1464-5130

Georgina Brewis,

Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

Abstract This paper considers the voluntary work of girls in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Historians have so far neglected to study social work as an integral part of middle‐class girls’ formal and informal education. The paper uses records of several little‐known girls’ service leagues including Time and Talents, Girl’s Realm Guild of Service, Girls’ Diocesan Association and United Girls’ School Mission. It argues that the priority accorded to training, social study and self‐development made membership of a service league a valuable source of further education before 1914. The paper begins with an overview of such leagues and a discussion of the training, study and social work undertaken. It considers how the work of service leagues was framed by broader debates around active citizenship. Finally the paper looks at some of the impacts of service leagues both on members and on the working‐class women and children they aimed to serve. Keywords: voluntarismyoutheducationcitizenshipwomen Notes 1‘The Guild Link’, July 1904 (MSS 3125, Mitchell Library, Sydney). 2Frank Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth–Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980); Jane Lewis, Women and Social Action in Victorian and Edwardian England (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1991); Jane Martin, ‘Gender, the City and the Politics of Schooling: Towards a Collective Biography of Women “Doing Good” as Public Moralists in Victorian London’, Gender and Education 17, no. 2 (May 2005): 143–63. 3Katharine Bentley Beauman, Women and the Settlement Movement (London: Radcliffe Press, 1996); Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women 1850–1920 (London: Virago, 1985); Jane Purvis, A History of Women’s Education in England (Buckingham: Oxford University Press, 1991). 4Carol Dyhouse, Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), 27–30. 5 The Story of the Mary Datchelor School 1877–1977 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977); Doris Burchell, Miss Buss’ Second School (London: Frances Mary Buss Foundation, 1971). 6K.E. Procter, A Short History of the Leeds Girls High School (Leeds: Waverly Press, 1926), I, 33. 7Purvis, History of Women’s Education, 82; Nigel Watson, ‘And Their Works do Follow Them’: The Story of North London Collegiate School 1850–2000 (London: James & James, 2000), 16. 8Sara Burstall, English High Schools for Girls (London: Longman, Green and Co, 1907), 209. 9Jennifer Stephens, The Peckham Settlement 1896–2000: A Story of Poverty, Privilege, Pioneering and Partnership (Fordingbridge: Stephens Press, 2002); Vicinus, Independent Women, 224; Burstall, English High Schools for Girls, 209. 10H.G. Veazey, ‘The First Mission Parish’, in ‘History of the UGS 1897–1945’ (Box 1, Peckham Settlement Archive, Southwark Local History Library). 11‘History of the UGS 1897–1945’. 12F.J. Maylin, Heathfield School: The First Fifty Years 1899–1849 (Heathfield School, 1994); Lucy Soulsby, ‘Brondesbury Ways or Toys Old and New’, in Impressions of LHMS, ed. E. Austin and BHS (Brondesbury: privately printed, 1927), 81; Gillian Avery, The Best Type of Girl: A History of Girls’ Independent Schools (London: Andre Deutsch, 1991), 122–3. 13Soulsby, ‘Brondesbury Ways’, 81. 14L.T. Meade, ‘English Girls and their Colleges’, Lady’s Pictorial (December 1891–January 1892): 1159; Judith Harford, The Opening of University Education to Women in Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2008), 31–2; Hilda Cashmore 1876–1943 (Gloucester: privately printed, 1944), 15–20. 15Emily Janes, ‘On the Associated Work of Women in Religion and Philanthropy’, in Woman’s Mission, ed. Angela Burdett Coutts (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1893), 146. 21C.S. Donald, ‘Preparation of the Young for Personal Service: Practical Work’, in Preparation of the Young for Personal Service in the Work of the Church at Home and Abroad. Pan Anglican Papers (London: SPCK, 1908), 1. 16Gary McCulloch, Philosophers and Kings: Education for Leadership in Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Jose Harris, ‘Political Thought and the Welfare State 1870–1940: An Intellectual Framework for British Social Policy’, Past and Present 135 (1992): 116–41. 17Revd C.D. Plater, Social Work in Catholic Schools (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1911), 20–1; John Lewis Paton, John Brown Paton: A Biography (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914), 430; Alex Devine, A Sympathetic Boyhood: The Public Schools and Social Questions (London: P.S. King and Son, 1913), 7. 18Matthew Grimley, Citizenship, Community, and the Church of England: Liberal Anglican Theories of the State between the Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 43. 19Nathan Roberts, ‘Character in the Mind: Citizenship Education and Psychology in Britain 1880–1914’, History of Education 33, no. 2 (2004): 197; Reba N. 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Vardy, ed., King Edward VI High School for Girls Birmingham 1883–1925 (London: Ernest Benn, 1928), 44. 29 Women Workers: The Papers read at the Conference held in Oxford 1912 (London: NUWW, 1912), 167; Handbook and Report of the National Union of Women Workers of Great Britain and Ireland 1910–11 (London: NUWW, 1911), 90; ‘History of the Girls Diocesan Association 1900–1920’ (Lambeth Palace Library, London), 1. 30Sally Mitchell, The New Girl: Girls’ Culture in England 1880–1915 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). 31Lady Rachel Byng, ‘Girlhood and Service’, Sunday Strand 15 (January–June 1907): 519–25; Jane Frances Dove, ‘Occupations for Girls at Home on Leaving School’, Wycombe Abbey Gazette 3, no. 10 (February 1908): 179–80. 32Alice Ottley, ‘The Church’s Duty to the Young: Preparation of Girls for Personal Service’, in Preparation of the Young for Personal Service, 2. 33 Women Workers Conference Report 1911 (London: NUWW, 1911), 177. 34Janes, ‘Associated Work of Women’, 131. 35Cited in Eliza Reidi, ‘Women, Gender, and the Promotion of Empire: The Victoria League, 1901–1914’, Historical Journal 45, no. 3 (September 2002): 570. 36 History of the Church of Scotland Woman’s Guild, 1981; Janes, ‘Associated Work of Women’, 143. 37 Review of Reviews 24 (July–December 1901): 677; Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, 75. 38W.B. Fitzgerald, Wesley Guild Manual, new and enlarged edn (London: Methodist Book Room, 1900), 5–6. 39F. Herbert Stead, Handbook on Young People’s Guilds (London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1889), 8–9; The Great Appeal of the Cavendish Association to Men of the Public Schools and Universities (London: John Murray, 1913), 76; M. Fothergill Robinson, The Spirit of Association (London: John Murray, 1913). 40W.B. FitzGerald, Wesley Guild Manual (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1897), 11; Stead, Young People’s Guilds, 9. 41Frederick Rockell, ‘The Knights of the Long Table: An Account of the Social Work of Mansfield House University Settlement, Canning Town, London’, Millgate Monthly 7 (February 1912): 301; Robert Baden‐Powell, ‘Scouting for Boys: An Explanation’ (undated leaflet c.1910, British Library). 42Cecile Matheson, ‘Opportunities for Training for Personal Service’, in Women Workers 1912, 48. 43 Women’s University Settlement Fifth Annual Report (London: WUS, 1892), 6. 44Mrs Dunn Gardner, ‘The Training of Volunteers: Paper read to the Council of the Charity Organisation Society 1894’, in Professional Education for Social Work in Britain: An Historical Account, ed. Marjorie Smith (1953; repr., London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965), 69–78. 45 WUS Third Annual Report 1890, 6. 46 WUS Fifth Annual Report, 1892, 23. 47 WUS Fourth Annual Report, 1891, 8. 48W.J. Ashley, On Social Study (Reprinted from the Year‐Book of Social Progress, 1912); Progress, 3 (July 1906): 231; The Year‐Book of Social Progress for 1912 (London: Thomas Nelson, 1912), 22–7; Jeffrey Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (New York: Routledge, 2008), 191–5. 49J. St. G. Heath, ‘Training Courses for Social Work’, Progress 7, no. 2 (April 1912): 90; GDA Leaflet, July 1910, 13. 50 Pan Anglican Congress Report (London: SPCK, 1908), IV, 225; Catholic Social Year Book for 1911, 68. 51 The Free Church Year Book 1906 (London: National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, 1906), 232; Time and Talents News, July 1908, 88–9. 52Time and Talents, ‘Secretaries’ Conference 1907’ (Time and Talents Archive, A/TT/2, London Metropolitan Archives); ‘Minutes of Meeting held on February 26 1903, Time and Talents Minute Book’ (A/TT/1, LMA). 53NUWW, ‘Executive Committee Minutes 1904–8’ (NUWW Archive, ACC/ 3613/1/1, LMA), 89, 116. 54Serena Kelley, ‘A Sisterhood of Service: The Records and Early History of the National Union of Women Workers’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 14, no. 2 (1993): 167–74; NUWW, ‘Executive Committee Minutes 1904–8’, 148. 55 Guild 1, no. 8 (August 1898). 56 GDA Leaflet, April 1912, 9. 62‘Peckham Settlement 1897–1987’. 57 Hermes: Westfield College Magazine, March 1901, 14; Dove, ‘Occupations for Girls at Home on Leaving School’, 180; GDA Leaflet, January 1910, 27. 58Violet Martineau, ed., Recollections of Sophia Lonsdale (London: John Murray, 1936), 217. 59 Catholic Social Year Book for 1910 (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1910), 65. 60 Time and Talents News, April 1901, 124; Baker Street School Magazine, March 1902, 34. 61 Wycombe Abbey Gazette 3, no. 10 (February 1908): 186. 63‘History of the UGS 1897–1945’, 19; Time and Talents News (July 1895): 351–3; Time and Talents News (January 1896): 386; Time and Talents News (1901): 101. 64Stephens, Peckham Settlement, 112. 65Robert R. Dolling, Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum (1896; repr., London: S.C. Brown, Langham and Company, 1903), 97; Hermes: Westfield College Magazine (April 1911); The Student Movement Oxford, December 1906, 45. 66Ellen Ross, ‘Slum Journeys: Ladies and London Poverty 1860–1940’, in The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes, ed. Alan Mayne and Tim Murray (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 11–21. 67Alan Mayne, The Imagined Slum: Newspaper Representation in Three Cities (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993); Time and Talents News (October 1893): 351; Time and Talents News (1901): 101. 68Lily Montagu, The Responsibility of Leisure, A Paper Read at the Conference of the National Union of Women Workers held in Oxford, October 1912, 6. 69 Baker Street School Magazine, April 1901, 2; Phyllis Hardy ed., St Paul’s Girls School Book (London: St Paul’s Girls’ School, 1925). 70Lavinia Talbot, ‘GDA Reminiscences 1970–1’ (MS 3145, GDA Archive, LPL). 71 Guild 1, no. 3 (March 1897): 100; NUWW Handbook, 1911–12, 94; Tissington Tatlow, ‘Missionary Study’, in Preparation of the Young for Personal Service, 3; ‘Suggestions for the Formation of Local Branches’, NUWW Leaflet (ACC/3613/08/069/01, LMA). 72Nomie Davidson, ‘GDA Reminiscences 1970–1’; Nancy Marsh, ‘How the GDA has helped us’, GDA Leaflet, January 1912, 12; Guild 1, no. 4 (April 1897): 137. 73Irene Moberly, ‘Some Reminiscences of GDA’, Spearhead, 2 December 1961, 8. 74 Conference on War Relief and Personal Service (London: Longman’s Green and Co., 1915), 163; Women Workers Oxford Conference 1912, 168. 75GDA Leaflet, July 1910, 12. 76 Guild 2, no. 1 (January 1898). 77M.E. Sadler, Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere: Their Place in the Educational System of an Industrial and Commercial State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1907), 83; Robert Snape, ‘The National Home Reading Union’, Journal of Victorian Culture 7, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 86–110. 78 Time and Talents News (October 1897): 8; Time and Talents News (January 1899): 134; Time and Talents News (January 1911). 79 Girl’s Realm 3, no. 2 (1901–1902): 1056. 80 NUWW Handbook, 1911–12, 94; GDA Leaflet, January 1910, 11; GDA Leaflet, October 1912, 45; NUWW, ‘NUWW York and District Branch Minutes of Council Meetings, 1909–1949’ (ACC 3613/8/32–33, LMA). 81 Time and Talents News (October 1893): 241; Time and Talents News (January 1894): 260. 82 Girl’s Realm 3, no. 2 (1901–1902): 1055. 83Rowland Prothero, ‘The Aim of Life’, in Women Workers 1912, 110–18; Martineau, Recollections of Sophia Lonsdale, 241; Montagu, Responsibility of Leisure, 1; Donald, ‘Preparation of the Young for Personal Service’, 1. 89 GDA Leaflet (October 1910): 30. 84 Girl’s Realm 2 (1899–1900): 628. 85 NUWW Handbook 1911–12, 98; Michael J. Moore, ‘Social Service and Social Legislation in Edwardian England: The Beginning of a New Role for Philanthropy’, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 3, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 33–43. 86H. L. Woollcombe, ‘Development of Personal Service’, in Conference on War Relief and Personal Service, 142; Matheson, ‘Opportunities for Training for Personal Service’, 52. 87 Guild 4, no. 1 (January 1901): 17; Moberly, ‘Some Reminiscences of GDA’. 88 Girl’s Realm (December 1909): xx; Time and Talents News (January 1894): 259–260; Time and Talents News (October 1906): 129. 90 Time and Talents News (January 1906): 29. 91Time and Talents, ‘Minutes of Meeting held on January 22 1903’ (A/TT/1, LMA); Time and Talents News (January 1903): 201. 92 Time and Talents News (July 1909): 103. 93H.G. Veazey, ‘Practical Work by Personal Service’, Preparation of the Young for Personal Service, 8. 94 Time and Talents News (April 1904): 88. 95‘Annual Report 1891–92’, Time and Talents News (July 1892): 150–1. 96 Girl’s Realm (April 1910): xiv; Girl’s Realm 3, no. 2 (1900–1901): xii. 97 Girl’s Realm (February 1907): xxviii; Girl’s Realm (February 1910): xiv; Lochhead, Lamp Was Lit, 31. 98Burchell, Miss Buss’ Second School, 49; Church of England High School Magazine, April 1901, 2. 110 Girl’s Realm (March 1911): xvii. 99T. Tatlow, ‘Missionary conference 1921’ (Box A23, SVMU Papers, Birmingham University Library). 100Andrew Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid‐Nineteenth Century (Harlow: Pearson, 2005), 17. 101Ibid., 239–42. 102 Church of England High School Magazine, April 1901, 10–11; Muriel Pike, The Oak Tree: The Story of Putney High School (London: privately printed, 1960), 14. 103 Berkhamsted School for Girls, 1888–1938 (London: 1938), 22. 104 Time and Talents News (October 1902): 185. 105 Girl’s Realm 9 (December 1906): xviii. 106 Girl’s Realm 10 (December 1907): xix. 107 Time and Talents News (1897): 2. 108 Time and Talents News (1898): 191. 109‘Minutes of a meeting held on Feb 15 1911’ (Cranbrooke Centre Minutes, Carton 1, Girl’s Realm Guild Archive, MSS 3125, ML). 111 Girl’s Realm (March 1910): xiii; Girl’s Realm (April 1910): xiv; GDA Leaflet, January 1910, 20; Time and Talents News (January 1906): 20–30; Time and Talents News (October 1907): 138; Guild 1, no. 2 (February 1897): 64; Guild 5, no. 3 (March 1902): 58; ‘Annual Report 1890–91’, Time and Talents News (July 1891): 85; Women’s University Association, First Annual Report 1888, 13; WUS Seventh Annual Report, June 1894, 23. 112 Handbook of Settlements in Great Britain (London: British Association of Residential Settlements, c.1947), 12. 113 Church of England High School Magazine, March 1902, 23. 114 Girl’s Realm (April 1910): xiv. 115 Our Magazine (December 1910): 129. 116 Leeds Girls’ High School Magazine 44 (Autumn 1912): 12. 117 Time and Talents News (October 1899): 212; Edith Evans, ‘GDA Reminiscences’; Ellen Ross, Slum Travelers: Ladies and London Poverty, 1860–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 20–3. 118 GDA Leaflet, January 1912, 57. 119‘GDA Reminiscences’. 120Susan Allen, ‘GDA Reminiscences 1970s’. 121Byng, ‘Girlhood and Service’. 125Louisa Creighton, A Purpose in Life (London: Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., 1901), 19. 122‘The New Girl’, Frances Mary Buss Schools, Jubilee Magazine, April 1900, 40–4. 123Ray Strachey, The Cause: A Short History of the Women’s Movement in Great Britain (1928; repr., London: Virago, 1978), 13, 77. 124Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, 229. 133Winifred Peck, ‘The Public School’, Time and Talents News 13, no. 49 (January 1913): 6. 126 Free Church Year Book 1910, 209. 127 Wycombe Abbey Gazette 4, no. 10 (June 1911): 168; Our Magazine, July 1911, 64. 128 GDA Leaflet, April 1913, 9. 129Ross, Slum Travelers, 8–10. 130Charles F. Masterman, ‘Realities at Home’, in Heart of the Empire: Discussions of Problems of Modern City Life with an Essay on Imperialism, ed. C.F.G. Masterman (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1901), 34–5; Kent, Cambridge in South London, 193. 131John Galsworthy, ‘Public Schools as “Caste” Factories’, in What the Worker Wants: The Daily Mail Enquiry (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912), 68–71. 132Hardy, St Paul’s Girls School Book, 54. 134 Girl’s Realm 3, no. 2 (1901–1902): 1055. 135Alan Kidd, ‘Philanthropy and the “Social History Paradigm”’, Social History 21, no. 2 (May 1996): 180–92. 136 Pan Anglican Congress Report, IV, 218. 137Jane Frances Dove, ‘Paper read to Association of Headmistresses’, Wycombe Abbey Gazette 3, no. 9 (November 1907): 190–1; Peck, ‘Public School’, 6. 138Arthur F. Winnington Ingram, A Mission of the Spirit (London: Wells Gardner, Darton, 1906), 68; ‘GDA Reminiscences’. 139Jessie Ackermann, Australia from a Woman’s Point of View (London: Cassell, 1913), 269. 140Irene Bliss, ‘Reminiscences of Westfield College 1907–1911’ (Westfield College Archive, Queen Mary University of London), 7. 141 Wycombe Abbey Gazette 3 (1908). 142Cited in Lorna Flint, Wycombe Abbey School 1896–1986: A Partial History (privately printed, 1989), 38. 143 GDA Leaflet, July 1910, 12–16.