According to the lack of sources, there are only small biographical information on the ‘domestic subjects’ staff during this period. Needlework seemed to have been taught by NLCS mistresses, but ‘various branches of technical education’ was taught by visiting mistresses supervised by outside ladies. In the case of Cookery, the first Cookery Mistress seemed to have been the member of NLCS who were sent to the National Training School of Cookery by Miss Buss to be trained as Cookery mistress.
One example of the pupils who commented on ‘domestic subjects’ under Miss Buss was Edith E. R. Mumford. Edith’s case shows how a girl with an academic talent accepted ‘domestic subjects’ in her later life. She was born in 1869 as a second daughter of a Doctor in Essex. The family soon moved to northern London, the neighbourhood of NLCS and CSG. After being taught by her mother with the brothers, Edith went to small private schools in the neighbourhood, ‘‘Dame School’ near her home, went to a boy’s private school in King Henry’s Road’, within the walking distance. In 1880 at the age of 12, she changed to NLCS in Sandall Road, about half-an-hour walk from home. Later her four sisters also went to NLCS. When the time came when girls were about to leave school, girls and parents were
125 required to meet Miss Buss to discuss the future of girls. Her recollections show that Miss Buss had a certain influence over girls and parents over girls’ future even as housewives.
‘What is your daughter going to do in her future, now that she is leaving? She [Miss Buss] would enquire, and there were few parents who were not sufficiently impressed by the arguments adduced by Miss Buss in favour of the girl earning her own living that they dared go against her considered judgment. Even the plea, occasionally put forward by the parents, that after so many years at school, it would be ‘nice’ to have the girl at home for a whole before continuing with further education, was not allowed to pass. If the girls married, Miss Buss maintained, they would be better housewives as the result of a good education, and more capable helpmeets for their husbands. If they did not marry, then it was even more essential that they should be trained to take a position in the outside world which would widen their interests.
‘A slack year at home would, she knew well, be far too likely to lead to a postponement altogether of their further necessary training. Until training had been completed there must be no break in the girls’ education, Miss Buss insisted. Not only girls, but parents also were being ‘educated’, as you can see- directly or indirectly- at Miss Buss’s School (Mumford, 1952, pp.13-14).
Edith did well in her study at NLCS and went to Girton College, Cambridge from 1888 to 1892. She chose Mathematics as her subject of study and became the 25th Wrangler at the end. After graduation, she obtained a paid post as a clerk on the Royal Labour Commission from 1892 to 1894. Edith aimed for a post as a lecturer at Cambridge, but was rejected because she was too young and feminine to teach young male scholars. Therefore, she got married to a doctor from Manchester in April 1895 and started her new life there. Her autobiography tells how she felt the task in household management interesting, however, was poor in doing so. During her days as pupil and student, it was her mother who managed her family household. Edith certainly was taught Domestic Economy in NLCS, but she states that the lessons were not useful in the actual household. Therefore, after marriage she had to gain help from housekeepers for the household management. When the housekeeper left, Edith had to learn to manage the maids.
When Grannie married, her ignorance of what constituted the running of a home might well have been described as abysmal! Her mother had fed her, clothed her- even darned her stockings for her- leaving her free to live the fullest intellectual life
126 possible. They had maids who lived with them as friends. They, together with her mother, had done all that was needed in the house. At school Grannie once earned a special prize for Domestic Economy, but she had no practical knowledge whatever, as far as the management of a house was concerned.…At the beginning of her married life she had a capable housekeeper who gladly did all that needed to be done, even treating Grannie on all occasions as if she- Grannie- were the Mistress, instead of (what she really was) a permanent, though very welcome guest! Unfortunately this housekeeper was obliged to go further North to take care of a brother two years after Grannie’s marriage, and Grannie had to start getting and managing maids.(Mumford, 1952, pp.70-71. See Appendix 5).
Some years after ‘she had three children under four years’, with the help of the nurse, Edith attended lectures in Cookery, Dressmaking and Millinery in Manchester to improve her skills. Edith seemed to find Cookery an interesting ‘creative’ work and eventually found household management being an interesting task requiring ‘mathematical’ ideas.
she now attended course of Extension Lecturers on cooking, dressmaking and even millinery. Soon after her first housekeeper had left, she had engaged a housemaid and a young maid in the kitchen who worked conscientiously under Grannie’s directions- glad to learn under Grannie who had by this time acquired sufficient household knowledge. So, for some while, Grannie, with the help of the little maid, took on herself the responsibility of cooking for the whole family- doing the planning, the preparing and the dishing up of food, and directing the maid in connection with the details of the work. Cooking gave Grannie many a thrill. To her it was creative work…
In cooking, as in individuals and social development, the ‘whole’ was seen to be greater than the sum of the ‘parts’. The intricacies of cutting out a pattern of a dress which would fit exactly, though only a few measurements had been taken and dealt with according to a certain mathematical computation fascinated Grannie in somewhat the same way. And it was the same with the other things which were done in the house. (Mumford, 1952, pp.75-76. See Appendix 5).