One of the Links of the six headmistresses, viz Miss Buss, Mrs Bryant, Miss Elford, Miss Lawford, Miss Day and Miss Burstall, is seen within the official activities of the AHM. AHM itself was set up under the strong leadership of Miss Buss in 1874. It started with eleven members, including Miss Buss and Miss Day, and its first meeting was attended by seven members, including Miss Buss, Miss Elford and Miss Day (AR 1895; Glenday and Price, 1974, pp.2). AHM was formed by Miss Buss to bring together headmistresses who had ‘lived and worked in strange conditions of isolation’ and to exchange views and information.
66 AHM held annual conferences in different cities after 1876, and improved their organisational structures. Early headmistresses fought to improve weak financial management of schools, the variety of academic levels of pupils, and unqualified skills and knowledge of staff. Until the 1890s, AHM was mainly concerned with fostering adequate teaching staff for their schools by supporting women’s colleges and teacher training colleges. AHM also worked to set up a system for the registration of teachers, improve staff welfare through pension funds, organise school hours, examinations, curriculum, and discussed problems related to health, prizes, and punishments (Glenday and Price, 1974, pp.12-24, 30-37).
During the early years of AHM a great part of its time was occupied in considering questions of school organisation and routine, for the headmistresses had no traditions either to guide them or to hamper them in their new sphere of work. Accordingly, many interesting and instructive discussions on matters such as the relations between headmistresses and their staff, curriculum, time allotted to the different subjects, pupils’ home work and home time tables, prizes, rewards, punishments, matters of school hygiene, the conduct of school examinations. On all these points the deliberations of AHM were most helpful to the headmistresses, who, in those early years of the movement, were called upon to organize some of the first Public Secondary Schools for Girls, and to begin the work which has since so greatly developed and has proved so signal a success (AR 1895, pp.5-9). Although AHM did not have the authority to compel any decision onto its members, it served as a body that helped to maintain a unity in educational decision―making and trends in girls’ secondary schools, in particular the shape and content of the curriculum.
Milsom (2012) analysed how AHM helped headmistresses form corporate and individual identity and acted as a platform for gendered professionalization. ’Such an Association may be seen to provide a powerful network: the wide ranging body could provide a space-place for the headmistresses to come together to form a collective identity and assert their power. At the same time, each could enhance her own individual identity (Milsom, 2012, p.11). AHM had a hierarchical structure consisting of ordinary members, headmistresses of ‘public schools’ (schools holding public governing bodies). Ordinary members may be elected to become executive members, chairs of Sub-Committees, Vice Presidents and finally Presidents. However, as AHM was ‘a close knit of élitist group’, new members had to have the respect of current members. This closed hierarchical structure reflected the aims and goals of AHM as a body enhancing professionalization (Milsom, 2012, p.12). AHM displayed three markers of professionalization described by Jacobs (2003). First, examination and
67 certification were encouraged through AHM to raise academic standards of both teachers and girls. Second, AHM served as a professional organisation which membership was important to work together and promote a professional status. Third, AHM was a new élite association asserting a new professional autonomy of headmistresses and teachers (Milsom, 2012, p79-80).
Milsom (2012) further noted the middle-class characteristics and ideals found in AHM. Headmistresses were members of middle-classes, who had already held independent and powerful occupations. AHM itself, together with the individual headmistresses, carved out their own trajectory in ‘the production of social, economic and educational change affecting the lives of many girls and women, both past and present’ (Milsom, 2012, p.12).
The table below shows during when the six headmistresses belonged to AHM and the years they held special positions there.
Table 1. Six headmistresses and the years they held special positions in AHM.
Schools. Membership. President. Executive Committee. Miss Buss NLCS 1874-1894. 1874-1894. 1874-1894.
Mrs. Bryant NLCS 1896-1918. 1903-1905. 1897 June -1901 June. President 1903-1905. Vice President after 1905.
Miss Elford CSG 1874-1881. - -
Miss Lawford CSG 1881-1914. - -
Miss Day MHSG 1874-1898 - 1874-1898.
Vice President after 1882. Miss Burstall MHSG 1899-1924 1909-1911. 1900 June- 1904 June.
President 1909-1911. Vice President after 1911. (Information taken from MEC and AR after 1895).
All six headmistresses were members of AHM while they were headmistresses. Some of them held leading positions as President, Vice President or members of the Executive Committee. Miss Buss, the headmistress of NLCS and the founder of AHM, was the first
68 President of AHM from its establishment in 1874 to her death in 1894. Miss Elford and Miss Lawford, the first two headmistresses of CSG, and Miss Day, the first headmistress of MHSG, never served as the President. After Miss Buss’s death, Miss Beale of Cheltenham Ladies’ College took over the role and the Presidentship of AHM came to be shared by other headmistresses each holding the position for two years. Miss Bryant, the second headmistresses of NLCS, and Miss Burstall, the second headmistress of MHSG, also held the position later. All four headmistresses except Miss Elford and Miss Lawford of CSG were members of the Executive Committees in which various discussions and agreements were made on the future of AHM and girls’ secondary schools. This difference between the statuses of headmistresses seems to have arisen from the different status of schools themselves. CSG was a middle-school catering for younger girls and those from lower social backgrounds than other two high schools.
The positions that the six headmistresses held within AHM show that while following the agreements in AHM, they themselves were also able to arrange and lead the discussion when doing so. As we will see in Chapter 3, the names of Miss Buss, Mrs Bryant, Miss Day and Miss Burstall frequently appeared in the arguments around arranging suitable girls’ secondary curricula and the introduction of ‘domestic subjects’. Certainly Miss Burstall took a leading position within AHM towards the introduction of ‘domestic subjects’ after the 1900s, however, the other three also held their opinions, influenced the discussions and agreed to follow the consensus formed in AHM in their time. Detailed analysis of their individual attitudes toward ‘domestic subjects’ is made in the following chapters.