Various

Until the end of the nineteenth century, most middle-class girls were educated at home by the family, unlike their brothers who routinely attended university, and the schools which did cater for them were generally of a very poor academic standard, with emphasis on 'accomplishments' such as embroidery and music. However, some, such as Louisa Martindale, tried to start their own schools for girls with more academically demanding curricula. Despite the failure of Martindale's exercise, Frances Mary Buss followed in her footsteps when, at the age of twenty-three, she founded the North London Collegiate School for Ladies with similar aims. In 1858 Dorothea Beale became Principal of the already extant Cheltenham Ladies College and soon transformed it into one of the most academically successful schools in the country while at the same time working to improve teaching standards through her work with the Head Mistresses' Association and The Teachers' Guild. In 1865 Beale began collaborating with Emily Davis, Barbara Bodichon, Helen Taylor, Frances Buss, and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, in forming a debating society which became known as the Kensington Society. There, these women, who would be crucial in the development of these schools, met for the first time to discuss this and other topics such as women's franchise. Nor did they confine their attentions to the education of girls but also researched the question of the subsequent entrance of women into higher education. The Queen's College in London had already opened in 1847 to provide a superior level of education to governesses and had proved a success without being an accredited institution of higher education itself. In this context and influenced by the London group, a large number of Ladies' Educational Associations sprang up throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Those in Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, etc, were brought together in 1867 by Anne Clough as the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women and its members included Josephine and George Butler as well as Elizabeth Wolstenholme-Elmy. This council began setting up a series of lectures and a university-based examination for women who wished to become teachers and which would later develop into a University Extension Scheme. However, universities generally still refused to open their degree examinations to women. In 1871, Henry Sidgwick established the residence Newnham College for women who were attending lectures at Cambridge where Clough would become principal in 1879 when it was recognised as an academic college. Girton was established by Davis as the College for Women at Hitchin in 1869 and moved to Cambridge as the first residential higher education college for women four years later. After the campaign to establish these institutions, it remained necessary to continue the campaign to extend their levels of excellence to the general state of female education and to open up other avenues of achievement to them.