Advice and ambition in a girls' public day school: the case of Sutton high school, 1884–1924

Abstract

This article discusses the role played by founders, staff and girls in establishing a new direction for English middle-class girls' education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The source material is from a case study of the archives of one of the Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) schools. The research used both qualitative and quantitative methodology, with the bulk of evidence being drawn from the school magazine. The focus is specifically on the girls' experience and use of their education. Speech day rhetoric is contrasted with an analysis of the girls' post-school occupations. Much has been written of the problems the founders and headmistresses faced in their attempts to modernise girls' education, whilst still apparently conforming to society's demands and parents' requirements. Reports of old girls' activities in the school magazines provide an insight into the part that the girls themselves played in advancing female education and redefining Victorian notions of femininity.