Even though Britain was ruled by a Queen in the 19th century the lives of women were heavily circumscribed. For most of that century women couldn’t go to university or become doctors, and a married woman had no legal rights to her own money or her children. Mary Ann Aldersey and  Florence Nightingale both found that a single woman was not even free to respond to God’s Call unless her parents, and especially her father, approved.

And yet, at a time when few women in the West  could access any form of further education, there were those who were determined to empower girls and women in India, the Far East, China and Africa by providing them with the opportunity to attend schools. There were often huge cultural hurdles for those girls and women to overcome to attend such schools and yet many not only did gain an education but became teachers themselves.

The stories of those women who went from the West to start those schools are often “hidden histories”. Here are some of those stories.  And hopefully along the way we will learn more about the national women who became teachers.  (All the stories on this website are copyright)

A Charter for Girls’ Education

The Quaker Inheritance

Single women not wanted

The Saga of Miss Wallace

Eliza Thornton – a singular success

Mary Anne Cooke Wilson and her Kolkata Schools

Pioneering Girls’ Education in India

Into the Harem’s of Egypt

St Margaret’s School, Singapore – the early years

Sophia Cooke’s Mission

Sophia Cooke’s Mission to China

Mary Ann Aldersey and the “first girls’ school” in China

Mary Ann Aldersey’s Mission

S India’s first female teacher training institute

Anna Satthianadhan: her schools and her legacy

Reflections on K Satthiandhan’s Saguna

Pioneering Girls’ Schools in  South Africa

Jemima and the Hudson Taylors

Jemima Bausum Lord was inspired by people like Mary Ann Aldersey and Maria Dyer (the mother of Maria Hudson Taylor) and played a significant role in the lives of James and Maria Hudson Taylor.

I wrote her story after hearing about the death of Joy Bausum. She died in Malaysia in August 2010 where she had been teaching refugee children. It is now called the Joy Bausum School.  Just Google “Joy Bausum” to learn more about her.