Founded in Liverpool in 1885, Edge Hill College was the country’s first non-denominational teacher training college for women. Over the past two or three years, staff and students at the modern day Edge Hill University have been researching the lives of our earliest students to find out more about their lives. This has revealed a quietly radical student body, with many of the earliest scholars coming from religious communities strongly associated with political radicalism at the time (such as Baptists and Methodists of various branches). With an entirely female staff encouraging debate, this seems to have fuelled an atmosphere of relative intellectual freedom, challenge and enquiry, with many of the students going on to play central roles in transforming their local communities and inspiring cultural and political shifts locally, nationally and internationally. Thanks to colleagues Rachel Bird, Dee McMahon and Aimy Stevens, as well as Dr Christine Lewis and Professor Alyson Brown, for discovering some of the stories described here.
Edge Hill College registration card for Ethel Snowden (nee Annakin) © Edge Hill University Archive
Ethel Annakin was a student at Edge Hill College, 1900-02. She was a socialist, women’s suffrage campaigner, feminist and pacifist who would become well-known internationally as an inspirational speaker and as the author of various books and pamphlets that would have a significant impact on the development of British left-wing politics. Contemporaries of Ethel’s at Edge Hill remember the 19 year old Ethel sneaking out of her bedroom window to go and speak to the Liverpool dockers about socialism and temperance. She would go on to marry Philip Snowden, an MP who became the Labour Party’s first ever Chancellor of the Exchequer (hence one of her addresses being 11 Downing Street on the registration card pictured) and was later made a Viscount, making Ethel Lady Snowden.
Jessie Reid Crosbie with her teaching staff, c. 1905. Jessie is on the centre row, third from left © Christine Mougne [Not to be reused for any purpose without the written permission of Edge Hill University Archive and Christine Mougne]
A student at Edge Hill College 1895-97, Jessie Reid Crosbie was a student of whom much was expected. Very quickly after graduating, she was made headteacher of a junior school in Everton, Liverpool in 1905. Recognising the links between poverty, children’s health and schooling, she made a series of groundbreaking education reforms. Washing facilities were introduced into the school, children were given free milk during breaks and clothing was sourced for the children where necessary. Jessie personally visited parents to talk to them about the need for good hygiene and their children to have a good night’s sleep before school. This partnership would evolve into providing courses for parents at the school and eventually involving them in discussions about other aspects of their child’s education, the forerunner of what would become our modern Parent Teacher Associations. Jessie was fairly well-known at the time, regularly speaking on the BBC in the 1930s, and was recognised with an MBE in 1933 and an honorary degree from the University of Liverpool in 1942.
Detail of the article by Helena Normanton describing the women’s suffrage march and published in the Edge Hill College Magazine, 1908 © Edge Hill University Archive
Helena Normanton trained to become a teacher at Edge Hill from 1903-05, but would later become far better known as the UK’s first female barrister. She would pioneer reforms in various areas of law, including divorce cases and was the first woman to hold a passport in her own name, refusing to take on her husband’s surname. Her skills in debate and rhetoric were given some early development at Edge Hill and she would regularly return to speak to students about her work. She also wrote an account (part of which is pictured here) of a women’s suffrage demonstration in Hyde Park, London, 13th June 1908, for the Edge Hill College Magazine, encouraging the women of Edge Hill to get involved. This demonstration was followed by a larger event the following weekend which has become known as Women’s Sunday and a report of which was provided in the same magazine by another former student, Kathleen Ratcliffe.
Painting of a flower by Isabel Hill, c. 1888 © Edge Hill University Archive
Isabel Hill trained at Edge Hill College from 1888-89. Among the things we have in the archive relating to Isabel is this lovely flower she painted for a friend and fellow student around 1888. After graduation, Isabel would give up her teaching career when she married W.H. Bowden in 1898 and the pair moved to Russia for her husband’s work. There, they would witness a tumultuous period of history, with Isabel writing fascinating accounts of life in Russia for the Edge Hill College Magazine, describing Russian workers having ‘secret’ meetings and being followed as she went about her daily business. Just a few years after the first (unsuccessful) Russian Revolution in 1905, Isabel wrote that it felt like there were “all the elements for a first-class explosion when the country is next upset.” She would leave Russia in 1917, just prior to the Russian Revolution, perhaps feeling that the “explosion” she predicted had come to pass.
Detail of an article in the Edge Hill College Magazine, 1897, about Annie Williams’ missionary work in India © Edge Hill University Archive
An Edge Hill College student from 1893-94, Annie Williams was a devout member of the Welsh Methodist Church and, in 1895, she undertook missionary work in India. Accounts of Annie’s experiences appear in the Edge Hill College magazine (an extract of which is shown here) and are a fascinating insight into late 19th century missionary work, revealing much about the work that was undertaken and the reasoning behind it, including many racist assumptions about the people and communities Annie and others interacted with. While in India, Annie tells other former Edge Hill students of many adventures and even survives one of India’s largest recorded earthquakes, having to “[jump] through an aperture formed in one of the walls of the house”! However, in the summer of 1897, Annie contracts cholera and dies two weeks before her 23rd birthday. Research revealed a significant number of tributes to Annie in Welsh-language newspapers and Methodist publications, reflecting the high esteem missionaries like Annie were held in by their peers.
A first edition copy of Blanche Ebbutt’s 1913 book, Don’ts for Wives © Edge Hill University Archive
Blanche Berry was an Edge Hill College student from 1886-87. Following a period teaching, she left the profession after she was married and had children. In 1913, under her married name, Blanche Ebbutt, she published two books, ‘Don’ts for Wives’ and ‘Don’ts for Husbands’, both of which were hugely successful. The books provide snippets of advice for happy relationships, often with a clear sense of humour, although many have also dated badly and can now be quite unintentionally hilarious, while others still feel relevant: “Don’t be talked down to by your husband when you want to express your views on any subject. You have a right to be heard”; “Don’t object to your husband getting a motor-bicycle; merely insist that he shall buy a side-car for you at the same time”. She even included fashion advice: “Don’t let your husband wear a violet tie with grass green socks. If he is unhappily devoid of the colour sense, he must be forcibly restrained.”
The books are still published to this day, although more often sold as novelty stocking fillers than serious self-help books!
For more information please contact: Dan Copley, Archivist, copleyd@edgehill.ac.uk