Dorothea Beale was a leading English educator of women and suffragette during the nineteenth century. Her most famous work is “The Student's Text-book of English and General History, Bell & Daldy”. Her ideas played a key role in launching reforms in women's education in England.
Background
Dorothea Beale was born on 21 March 1831 in London, United Kingdom; the daughter of Edward Complin, a surgeon, and Elizabeth Harris. She had two older sisters and one older brother. Her father, originally from Gloucestershire, was a surgeon who moved to St Helen's parish, Bishopsgate, London in 1830.
Education
Until the age of seven, Dorothea had lessons with her mother, then with a governess and, when this lady married, her father became her teacher. Dorothea Beale partly studied at home and partly at a school at Stratford, Essex, till the age of thirteen.
From age thirteen to sixteen Beale educated herself at home. Although Beale's father considered arithmetic to be a waste of time, Beale's parents did not actively prevent her from learning mathematics. So, during her three years of self-education, Beale taught herself arithmetic with Bishop Colenso's Arithmetic Exercises with Answers. Beale also attended the lectures by the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, Joseph Pullen, at Crosby Hall. These lectures had a substantial impact on her, inspiring a passionate desire to know more about mathematics and the processes described in the lectures.
At the age of 16, in 1848, Beale's parents sent her to a finishing school on the Champs Élysées in Paris which enjoyed a favorable scholarly reputation. But she was brought home after the outbreak of the 1848 Revolution in France. When Beale returned to England, she began studying at Queen's College, London in 1849. She soon became one of its star pupils. At the end of her studies, she was awarded certificates in mathematics, English, French, German, geography, and Latin.
Dorothea was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh on 11 April 1902.
Career
In the middle of Beale's studies at Queens College in 1849 she was offered a job, the first teaching post held by a woman at Queens. For seven years, Beale instructed at Queens till 1857. She began teaching mathematics, then became a Latin tutor and lastly headteacher of the school attached to the college.
After leaving Queens, she was appointed to a post at the Clergy Daughters' School in Casterton, a small village in Westmoreland in the north of England. When she took up the post on January 6, 1857, the school's reputation was poor. In 1857, less than a year at her post, she received a letter of dismissal. This was a humiliating experience for the previously successful Dorothea Beale. She returned home discouraged and disappointed. Luckily, she did not need to teach for a living; her parents were sufficiently prosperous to support her. Beale, however, did not waste her time. She taught part-time at a school in Barnes, near London, and wrote two books "The Student's Textbook of English" in 1858 and "General History, an overview of world history, and Self-Examination", a book which rested on a theme of duty towards God and one's neighbor.
In the summer of 1858, along with 50 other applicants, Beale applied for the position of Principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College. She was successful and with her appointment, the school rose to fame. When Beale arrived at Cheltenham in 1858, despite music and drawing being included for all pupils, neither mathematics nor science were taught. Although she wished to introduce geometry in order to teach the girls how to form clear ideas, she recognised that many of the remaining pupils would have been frightened away, as they were constantly hearing that girls would be turned into boys by studying the same subjects. On December 22, 1874, she chaired a group of nine headmistresses formed to exchange educational ideas and act as a pressure group.
In 1885 Beale opened St Hilda's College, Cheltenham. Beale was convinced of the need for proper training of teachers of all levels, therefore the Training Department offered three courses. There was a one year course for the training of secondary school mistresses, a three year course for the training of elementary school mistresses, and a course extending over two years and a term for the training of Kindergarten and Junior Mistresses. The training was offered in partnership with four practising schools, Cheltenham Ladies' College, the Ladies' College School, St Stephen's Primary School and Kindergarten, and a public Elementary School. The trainee teachers had the opportunity to observe and learn from accomplished teachers.
In 1893 Beale provided funds to establish St Hilda's Hall, Oxford, so that those training to be teachers could spend a year in Oxford. However, although she maintained financial control over the Oxford Hall, she had little involvement otherwise. In collaboration with Miss Soulsby and Miss Dove she embodied her matured views on girls' education in "Work and Play in Girls' Schools" that was written in 1898. She had set up The Cheltenham Ladies' College Magazine in 1880 and she edited it for 26 years from 1880 until her death.
Views
Beale believed that she had been chosen by God to fulfill a sacred destiny, and her calling was to teach.
Her educational reforms included expanding the curriculum for her students to include history, mathematics, and scientific concepts - a radical departure from the courses in needlework, music, and other domestic skills that were considered appropriate training for privileged young women at that time.
Beale's beliefs that women should be educated so that they could be better wives and mothers and that women do not require the same educational opportunities as men appear extremely conservative by modern standards.
Membership
Outside college work Miss Beale associated herself with nearly every effort for educational progress, and with local philanthropic institutions. Beale was a founding member of the Association of Head Mistresses in 1874 and she served as its president from 1895 to 1897. She was also a member of numerous educational societies such as Kensington Society, Central Society for Women's Suffrage as a vice president, London Society for Women's Suffrage. In 1894 she gave evidence before the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, of which James Bryce was chairman.
Personality
Dorothea Beale combined her strong will and self-discipline with her family's heavy emphasis on religion, resulting in a mystical outlook that she held throughout her life. She was an energetic and authoritative woman.
Connections
Career and husband were incompatible for women in the 19th-century England so Beale declined her many offers of marriage.