Caroline Freeman (c.1856 – 16 August 1914) was a teacher, school principal and owner, and the first female graduate of the University of Otago, New Zealand.
Early life
Freeman was born near Halifax, Yorkshire, England. Different sources give different dates for her birth, 13 August 1852 or about 1855 or 1856 (exact date unknown). She came to Otago, New Zealand, with five siblings and her parents, William and Anne Freeman, on the Nourmabal in 1858, surviving measles on the journey.
The Freemans farmed at Abbotsford, Green Island, New Zealand on a farm named "Abbots Royd". Freeman, educated at the small one-room Green Island School, was dux there in her final year.
Education
Freeman was a pupil-teacher at Green Island School for four years. Her headmaster and mentor, A. G. Allen wrote about her: 'Caroline Freeman promises to become a very good pupil-teacher'.
Although Freeman had had no formal secondary education, she progressed from Green Island School to take the senior position of Infant Mistress at a large working class school, Caversham, in Dunedin. With the support of her headmaster, William Milne, she undertook study so that she might matriculate, that is, gain university entrance. She studied while working at Caversham, and at the end of 1877 she left to enrol at Otago University College. In 1878, she was the first woman to matriculate at the University of Otago; she passed the first section of her B.A. in 1881; and the second in 1885. She studied Classics, English and Latin, and although she failed several subjects during her studies, including history and political economy, she also won the prestigious Bowen Essay Prize, which was open to all New Zealand undergraduates. Her winning essay was on the subject "The Norman Conquest: its effect on the subsequent development of English institutions".
Freeman's studies were always part-time and never easy - she had a seven-mile walk from her home in Green Island to the university, for example, and this eventually took its toll on her health and she moved into rented rooms in town. Early in 1882, she was appointed first assistant at Otago Girls' High School. The position was re-advertised in December, the board possibly wanting an older, more experienced person in the role. Angry, Freeman resigned from the school staff.
Freeman was capped as Otago's first woman graduate on 27 August 1885, achieving a Bachelor of Arts degree after seven years of study. The graduation ceremony was a great celebration of her achievement; the audience clapped, cheered, sang and threw bouquets onto the stage. She had achieved her degree not through the usual route of completing high school and then studying full time at university with the support of a family, but through part-time study as an adult. Dr William Brown, speaking at the graduation ceremony, said the following about Caroline:
"I cannot conclude without a word of congratulation to Miss Freeman. No one knows so well as I do the difficulties she has had to contend with. She has shown such pluck and perseverance that, if she had been a fighting man instead of a studious woman, she would have merited decoration. I am pleased, therefore, to hail her as the first lady graduate from the Otago University."
Career and professional life
In 1886, in Dunedin, Freeman opened her own school, Girton College - the name was taken from that of an educational facility for women at Cambridge University, England. She began with four girls in a disused hall but moved to better premises where she had 60 pupils and an associated boarding establishment.
In 1897, Freeman opened a second Girton College in Latimer Square, Christchurch, also with 60 pupils. The Christchurch school was a large building with a stage, with imported casts for models for drawing classes, a 2,000 volume library and Yagg's anatomical studies of the human body. The schools were popular with parents. They gave moral guidance and were excellent finishing schools. They also prepared some of the pupils for tertiary study, after which they would go on to be secondary school teachers.
Freeman was active in the wider intellectual community of the region - in 1899, the Gore Young Men's Temperance Society organised a lecture series at which Freeman delivered a lecture on "The Cry of the Children".