 |
|
Women's education For general information on the history of education and information about the type of archive material available for study look at our pages on school records in our Family History Section. A statistical analysis of marriage registers from 1846 by J Ginswick in Labour and the Poor in England and Wales 1849-1851 revealed that in the Wolverhampton district out of 1,133 marriages, not less than 833 (or 73%) women signed the register with their marks. It was not for another twenty years or so that education became available to a large proportion of the population. There was some education available for women in the early part of the 19th century but it would have been for what were termed 'ladies' rather than the majority of females.
There was little education for working class women before the establishment of church schools in the 19th century. All of these catered for both boys and girls and employed male and female teachers who generally taught segregated classes of a very large size. In 1847 St Peter's School employed one man to teach eighty-five boys and one woman to teach a hundred and twenty-five girls. Older children were used as monitors to maintain order.
St Michael's School, Tettenhall in the 1920's - senior girls. Most girls stayed at elementary schools until they reached the leaving age, without progressing to secondary education (Y5/STM)
Woodfield Avenue Junior School in 1916 - note how boys and girls are seated separately (Y5/WOO/1)
The Royal Orphanage (now the Royal Wolverhampton School) in the 1920's (Y5/ROY/4) Wolverhampton and Bilston had the following schools specifically for educating girls, though there were other schools of course that educated both girls and boys:
Teaching was becoming an important career opportunity for women and the pupil/teacher system was established in Wolverhampton in 1894. Training was given for three months of the year and practical experience for the rest of the time. For girls however, it was difficult to reach this stage as there was no secondary education for them in the town. The Girls' High School, opened in 1911, was an important new factor in education for girls in Wolverhampton. 180 pupils assembled on the first day (including the kindergarten which remained until 1920) taking boys as well as girls. The first "Borough Mayor Scholarship" was held as early as 1912, by Winifred Knight at University College, Reading. Before 1945 very few girls stayed on after the age of 16. Only five took the "Higher Schools Certificate" in 1939 and the fact that most pupils were destined to become wives and mothers is reflected in the school's activities - which included a 'grandchildren's day' - and by the long lists of marriages and births in the school magazines.
© Copyright. Wolverhampton City Council, 2002
|
