Dorothea Beale LL.D. (21 March 1831 – 9 November 1906) was a suffragist, educational reformer and author. As Principal of Cheltenham Ladies' College, she became the founder of St Hilda's College, Oxford.
Early and family life
Dorothea Beale was born on 21 March 1831 at 41 Bishopsgate Street, London, the fourth child and third daughter of Miles Beale, a surgeon, of a Gloucestershire family who took an active interest in educational and social issues. Her mother, Dorothea Margaret Complin, of Huguenot extraction, would have eleven children. She was first cousin to Caroline Frances Cornwallis, a relationship that influenced the young Dorothea. Educated till the age of 13 partly at home and partly at a school at Stratford, Essex, Dorothea then attended lectures at Gresham College and at the Crosby Hall Literary Institution, and developed an aptitude for mathematics.
In 1847, she and two older sisters began attending Mrs Bray's fashionable school for English girls in Paris, where Dorothea remained till the revolution of 1848 closed the school. Dorothea and her sisters then were among the earliest students at the newly opened Queen's College, Harley Street, London. Their companions included Frances Buss and Adelaide Procter.
Career
In 1849, Dorothea Beale was appointed mathematics tutor at Queen's College, and in 1854 she became head teacher in the school attached to the college, under Miss Parry.
In holidays Beale visited schools in Switzerland and Germany. In 1856, for instance, she spent time at the Deaconess's Institute of Kaiserswerth, where she made the acquaintance of Elizabeth Ferard. In the same year, Beale anonymously published a small pamphlet in which she promoted the institute. At the end of 1856, she left Queen's College, dissatisfied with its administration, and in January 1857 became head of the Clergy Daughters' School, Casterton, Westmorland (founded in 1823 by William Carus Wilson at Cowan Bridge). There Beale's insistence on the need of reforms led to her resignation the following December, although many changes in the management of the school were made the next year. In 1858, Beale established a scholarship for Casterton School students to attend Cheltenham.
While seeking fresh work Beale taught mathematics and Latin at Miss Elwall's school at Barnes, and compiled her Students' Text-Book of English and General History from B.C. 100 to the Present Time, for the use of teachers.
On 16 June 1858 Miss Beale was chosen out of 50 candidates to be principal of the Ladies' College, Cheltenham, the earliest proprietary girls' school in England. The school had been opened on 13 February 1854 with 82 pupils on a capital of £2,000. Beale spent the rest of her educational career at Cheltenham. When she began as principal, the school had 69 pupils and only £400 of its original capital remained. For the next two years the college struggled. In 1860, the financial arrangements were reorganised, and by 1863 the pupil count had risen to 126. Thenceforward the college's survival was assured. In 1873, it moved to buildings of its own, which were enlarged three years later, when the school had 310 pupils. In 1880, the college was incorporated as an independent company, by which time the pupil count had reached 500. Numerous additions were made to the buildings between 1882 and 1905. In 1912, the school comprised over 1,000 pupils and 120 teachers, 14 boarding houses, a secondary and a kindergarten teachers' training department, a library of over 7,000 volumes, and 15 acres of playing-fields.
As early as 1864, Beale's success as a headmistress was acknowledged. In 1865 she gave evidence before the endowed schools inquiry commission, the seven other lady witnesses including Buss and Miss Emily Davies. The evidence, published in 1868, gave an immense impetus to the education of girls in England. In 1869, Beale published, with a preface by herself, the commissioners' Reports on the Education of Girls. With Extracts from the Evidence. It is a remarkable exposure of the low average standard of the teaching in girls' secondary schools before 1870.
Dorothea Beale saw that the absence of all means of training teachers was a main obstacle to improvement. An endeavour to meet the need was made by a friend at Cheltenham in 1876. Next year, on her friend's death, Beale carried on the work. Progress was rapid: the country's first residential training college, called St Hilda's College, was built there and opened in 1885.