‘It has occurred to me that a more detailed description than that given six years ago by Miss Nightingale of an institution in which she was herself trained, and which has since that time many new features, might assist those who are considering the best way of turning to account the wasted energy of our country-women, of those whose highest happiness it would be to be like Mary, Joanna, and Susannah, to follow Christ.... There are many who, when they pray to God “to comfort and succourall them who ... are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity,” cannot be satisfied without giving a small portion of their money, who tremble at the thought of being numbered with the women who are at ease, with the careless daughters. O that Christ would take us by the hand. He has but to speak the word: “Daughter, I say unto thee, Arise”; and we shall arise and minister to Him: then will the scorners acknowledge we were only sleeping, and our souls will magnify the Lord.’[23]
‘It has occurred to me that a more detailed description than that given six years ago by Miss Nightingale of an institution in which she was herself trained, and which has since that time many new features, might assist those who are considering the best way of turning to account the wasted energy of our country-women, of those whose highest happiness it would be to be like Mary, Joanna, and Susannah, to follow Christ.... There are many who, when they pray to God “to comfort and succourall them who ... are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity,” cannot be satisfied without giving a small portion of their money, who tremble at the thought of being numbered with the women who are at ease, with the careless daughters. O that Christ would take us by the hand. He has but to speak the word: “Daughter, I say unto thee, Arise”; and we shall arise and minister to Him: then will the scorners acknowledge we were only sleeping, and our souls will magnify the Lord.’[23]
Two other short extracts must be permitted:
‘I could not but contrast the aimless existence of many of my own country-women, the dreary regions of the fashionable world, with the wide field under cultivation by this band of Sisters, who, by God’s blessing, penetrate year by year farther into the wilderness, and rescue so many of their fellow-creatures from evils more to be dreaded than famine, pestilence, and the sword.’[24]
‘I could not but contrast the aimless existence of many of my own country-women, the dreary regions of the fashionable world, with the wide field under cultivation by this band of Sisters, who, by God’s blessing, penetrate year by year farther into the wilderness, and rescue so many of their fellow-creatures from evils more to be dreaded than famine, pestilence, and the sword.’[24]
Finally, the following passage tells how the strengthening thought of the Communion of Saints, of which she spoke to Miss Gore on the last Sunday of her life, was already beginning to be hers:
‘The happiness of a Deaconess does not arise from external circumstances; it is a peace which the world cannot give. She must be prepared to live away from the world, without any society but that of a few sick persons and children, without beautiful services; to believe, in the midst of unbelief and sin, in the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints. She must always be watching for her Lord’s coming, for in the midst of the pestilence and near the field of battle is her post.’[25]
‘The happiness of a Deaconess does not arise from external circumstances; it is a peace which the world cannot give. She must be prepared to live away from the world, without any society but that of a few sick persons and children, without beautiful services; to believe, in the midst of unbelief and sin, in the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints. She must always be watching for her Lord’s coming, for in the midst of the pestilence and near the field of battle is her post.’[25]
A second visit to Kaiserwerth, ten years later, gave Miss Beale great pleasure. She was delighted with the work being done and the extension of the small beginnings she had seen in 1856. In 1905, at Oeynhausen, she met accidentally a Deaconess of Kaiserwerth, was much attracted by her, and invited her to come andsee her and talk to her of the institution, and after her return to England exchanged letters with her.
TheTextbook of Historyentailed a great deal of labour and study, which must have been a boon to its writer at a time of depression and uncertainty. Though the scheme of it was no doubt in her mind before she left Casterton, and the book was probably begun in the summer holidays of 1857, it was not till after Christmas that she was free to devote herself to it. Then she threw into the work every hour she could justly secure, striving at the same time not to neglect family claims. The conditions under which it was done were little short of heroic. In order to secure freedom from interruption both for herself and her books of reference, she chose for her study a large empty room, where she worked in the midst of open volumes spread round her on the floor. It was winter, but she was glad to avail herself of the difficulty of keeping up a daily fire at the top of the old City house, in order to give less attraction to any other members of the household to sit with her and take up time in conversation. The empty grate by which she wrote lends significance to an entry in the diary of March 1858: ‘Self-indulgence because of cold.’ The self-denial and concentration of the writer bore early fruit, for this book, a digest of world-wide histories, was published in August 1858, just after its author had come to Cheltenham. The production of this textbook is an instance of the way in which Miss Beale would see and seize an opportunity. There was a real need for such a work. In her introduction she alludes to objections which could be raised to similar books then in use, and which were stated in articles which appeared in theTimesof January 1857.
Miss Beale’s reference is doubtless to two lettersheaded ‘The Corruption of Popular School Books.’ The first of these, by the noted Dr. Cumming, appeared on January 17, and dealt with certain changes which had been made, in a Romish direction, in a widely used textbook of English history by Henry Ince. A new edition had lately appeared, professing itself to be much extended and improved, in wide circulation, and sanctioned by her Majesty’s Committee of the Council of Education. This edition, pleaded the writer of theTimesletter, contained statements which made it ‘unsuitable for use in Protestant schools.’ Those quoted,e.g.that ‘Queen Elizabeth was a mistress in the art of dissembling,’ do not seem very reprehensible, but enough savour of Papistry had been introduced into the book to cause the Committee above-mentioned and the Society of Arts to strike the book off their lists. Dorothea Beale was quick to see and seize the opportunity thus afforded for a new textbook.
The very large scope of the work, embracing as it does the whole history of the world since the beginning of the Christian era, with the history of England given in rather fuller detail than the rest, makes it imperative that its hundred and seventy closely printed pages should be rather dry. TheTextbookis intended for the teacher rather than the pupil; highly useful in its arrangement of facts, and names, and suggestions of ideas, but not in itself a complete lesson-book. Its clearness and fulness are not more characteristic of the writer than the dramatic instinct which led her to give such names, titles, and short quotations as tend at once to fix a fact in the memory, and to conjure up visions of the conditions under which such and such events took place. Miss Beale had a remarkable quickness in seizing on the important matter and stating it in a few tellingwords. It is interesting to take at haphazard her history of any century, and mark what a wealth of interest rather than of information is brought together in a few short pages to stimulate the reader’s thirst for knowledge. But it is sufficient to point out the titles chosen for the centuries, as showing what seemed to her of greatest importance to the progress of mankind.[26]
The book is completed with an account of the English Constitution and some genealogical tables. It reached a seventh edition, but Miss Beale was disinclined to bring it up to quite modern times, doubtless because she felt there are now other books to cover the ground as well or better than her own. Consequently the nineteenth century is left uncompleted. The book, however, played a useful part at a time when the teaching of history was very imperfect, and was well received by those who knew its author. ‘The plan of the book,’ wrote Mr. Plumptre, ‘seems to me very good, and I cannot doubt that you have carried into the details the same painstaking accuracy with which we used to be familiar in your work with us.’
Mr. Mackenzie, at the writer’s request, made an elaborate criticism, from which it is enough to quote his ‘chiefcomplaint’: ‘Your unfairness to your own sex, and your willingness to believe and repeat the calumnies uttered against them by male writers, a fault to which the old monks were especially prone; but they were not quite silent, as you are, upon the virtues of the royal and noble Anglo-Saxon ladies, who did so much, even in the darkest ages, towards educating and refining the barbarous people by whom they were surrounded.’
Mr. Beale mentioned it more than once in his letters to the daughter in whose talent he had such pride:‘The success of your little book is very encouraging. E. says they call it “Beale’s Ince.” ... I dined at the Adams’ last week, a doctor’s party. Dr. Daldy was loud in praise of theTextbook.’ And again, ‘Underneath D. Beale in my own copy I have written “sed summa sequar festigia rerum.”’ And to the end it was a source of satisfaction to the writer herself. ‘You could not have done so well without myTextbook, could you?’ she said to an old pupil whose Histories for Schools have been widely accepted.
The third work of this period was a little book entitledSelf-Examination. This was chiefly designed for schools, and was edited by Mr. Denton, the vicar of St. Bartholomew’s, Moor Lane. This book, too, written when books of devotion were far less common than they are now, and in order to supply a real need of schoolgirls, has been long superseded by others, but in many cases the works for which it has been put on one side are less thoughtful and penetrating. The questions and meditations are arranged round the subjects of ‘My Duty towards God, and my Duty towards my Neighbour,’ and with the comment of verses from the Bible are presented in that tabular form which Miss Beale loved.[27]The actual questions for self-examination are throughout slight and few in proportion to what is suggested by the Scripture texts and the meditations; the reason doubtless being to make the reader think for herself.
This little work brings us face to face with that religion which all her life long was the motive power of Dorothea’s life. Deep religious feeling was no phase nor change of thought which came to her with years or experience. It was not wrought for her in the furnaceof sorrow, though many times there renewed and purified. It was so much the dominating force of her mind and life, that, by which every day as every year she was controlled and inspired, that it may be reverently regarded as a special gift to one called to a great service. ‘I cannot,’ she wrote, ‘look back upon the time when God was not a present Friend. I would throw myself on my knees in trouble, and He gave of His compassion. How (as a child) I used to follow the service and wish it were possible to think of what God was;—to think of Him as mere Light was the nearest approach.’ And as an old woman—despite the love of friends, and her well-deserved honours, often alone and sick and weary—she wrote, ‘The Lord is my Light.’ But the religion of Dorothea Beale was far indeed from being a mere succession of beautiful and comforting thoughts. It meant authority. It involved all the difficulties of daily obedience, it meant the fatigue of watching, the pains of battle, sometimes the humiliation of defeat. Intense as was her feeling on religious subjects, it was never permitted to go off in steam, as she would term it, but became at once a practical matter for everyday life. Sorrow and regret for sin and mistakes passed into fresh effort against them; the perception of a beautiful thought or idea became a new motive for definite acts of charity and diligence. With regard to such a religious life as hers, the mind dwelling habitually in a region which is beyond controversy, it seems like a descent to a lower plane to speak of religiousopinions. Yet no approximately true history of her can be related without reference to these. Even if there were no record of it as there is, it is obvious that one at once so large-minded and clear-headed, whose life displayed so much organisation and arrangement, musthave definitely faced the great problems of eternity, must have listened to every appeal of Christianity, and with her own eyes have looked up each avenue of thought which promised an approach to Truth. And this she undoubtedly did. But in the knowledge of Divine things, as in that which she would scarcely permit to be called secular, her faithfulness and simple obedience to early teaching directed her mind to certain religious duties and opinions from which she never parted: ‘If any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine,’ is a text she was fond of quoting to her Scripture classes. She lived to realise it. Very early and continuously she ruled her life by the commandments of the Lord, and when storms arose, when winds and floods of doubt threatened ruin, when she was herself ready to cry, ‘All is gone,’ the foundations of the house of faith were yet secure, and thereon love rebuilt.
And so it may be truly said that the framework of her personal religion was in age what it had been in youth. She had her own distinctly outlined path to which she had been guided early by such friends as her father and Mr. Mackenzie. This has been sometimes lost sight of, possibly owing to her deep sympathy and interest in matters of doubt and difficulty. When any of her children turned to her in distress of this nature, she felt, more than at any other time, the yearning of a mother’s heart, and was fearful of saying any word or even of showing any opinion of her own which might alarm or seal up confidence. Hence people of widely different views wished to claim her as of their own way of thinking when often she was not. She did not think it of paramount importance when speaking to the unorthodox, or even to the agnostic, to state her own beliefs precisely. She did not seek to proselytise butto help, to remove, as far as power was given her, all hindrances to the light, to persuade those who were in darkness still to obey. But she knew that she could not make anysee; she recognised faith as the gift of God.
Miles Beale was a Churchman of the type known best by its nickname ‘High and Dry.’ His daughters were still quite young when they found this was a school to which not all the world belonged, and they began to appreciate religious differences. They heard, between St. Helen’s and St. Bartholomew’s, preachers of varying shades of thought. Mr. Mackenzie was succeeded at St. Helen’s by an incumbent of evangelical views. Some of Mr. Denton’s curates at St. Bartholomew’s went over to Rome; one became Father Ignatius.
Dorothea was only sixteen when her father wrote to her on the subject of the Hampden-Gorham dispute, as of a matter she well understood and found interesting. And this recalls the fact that religious controversy of that day raged specially round the question of Baptismal Regeneration. A letter written to the Council of the Ladies’ College after her appointment[28]shows how clearly and concisely, and without reference to books, Miss Beale could state her opinions. It deals with her views of the Sacraments, marking her religious position at the time and indeed to the end;—it was for her Prayer-book that she asked in the one clear moment of the last unconsciousness. This letter contains a bare, unemotional statement of belief, to which may well be added this: that while she held firmly the doctrine of ‘Two only, as generally necessary to salvation,’ the life of grace through the Sacraments was the power by which she lived. She recognised herself as fortunate inher special heritage of Christian thought, writing of it thus:—
‘It was a time of great religious revival: the bald services of my childhood were beginning to develop into the musical services of our own time.... The beautiful music of to-day is not more dear to me than those plain services with often grotesque accompaniments where I learned to see Heaven opened. Miss Sewell’s writings, especiallyThe Experience of Life, helped me in early youth to work out the problems of my daily life. Religion quickened the intellectual life, for Sacramental teaching was to the leaders of that movement no narrow dogmatism, but the discovery of the river of the water of life flowing through the whole desert of human existence, and making it rejoice and blossom as the rose, revealing a unity in creation, a continuity in history, a glory in art, a purpose in life, making life infinitely worth living.’[29]
‘It was a time of great religious revival: the bald services of my childhood were beginning to develop into the musical services of our own time.... The beautiful music of to-day is not more dear to me than those plain services with often grotesque accompaniments where I learned to see Heaven opened. Miss Sewell’s writings, especiallyThe Experience of Life, helped me in early youth to work out the problems of my daily life. Religion quickened the intellectual life, for Sacramental teaching was to the leaders of that movement no narrow dogmatism, but the discovery of the river of the water of life flowing through the whole desert of human existence, and making it rejoice and blossom as the rose, revealing a unity in creation, a continuity in history, a glory in art, a purpose in life, making life infinitely worth living.’[29]
When quite young she began the practice of Sunday Communion, and many a week day found her at the 6A.M.celebration at St. Bartholomew’s Church. From first to last her scanty diary records this service among the leading facts of ordinary life.
In the power thus gained she had ever before her the thought of co-operation, of working out salvation, of putting on Christ by daily dying to self by minute watchfulness, and in every sense of the word painstaking diligence. At a time when the pulpits of Cheltenham were ringing with statements which seemed to her to misrepresent the great doctrine of the Atonement, she was speaking to her children of the true nature of the Redeemer’s Blood, of the living stream flowing from the Heart through all the members; she was seeking for herself and for them the righteousness of Christ, not as a mere substitution, but as a real attainment won by the union of a soul wholly surrendered to the workings of the grace of God.
This chapter may fitly close with a passage from the diary, which she appears to have begun to keep for the first time this year, when she was to some extent forced back upon herself, when she was making her own scheme of daily work. Begun on Ash Wednesday, February 17, 1858, it was continued intermittently at least to 1901, when the increasing infirmities of age made all reading and writing difficult. Sometimes dropped for many months, it was taken up again as if with the suggestion of a sense of culpability for neglect. It was never full; never, so far as outward events are concerned, of any great interest. Some of these, indeed, as the writing of certain letters, the visits of certain friends, or business engagements, are just mentioned and no more; doubtless for the sake of reference only. It remains for us as a revelation of the keen self-scrutiny with which she, who had to guide and warn others, was daily searching her own soul. Very often for weeks there is no mention of anything done, or seen, or thought as far as the matters of this world are concerned; but she never failed to note what she regarded as the real life, spiritual growth or the reverse, right or wrong conduct, faithful or unfaithful performance of religious duties. This diary cannot be ignored if a true presentment of Dorothea Beale is to be given. Hence, intimate as it is, enough extracts as may display the persistent effort of her life are inserted here. They are not consecutive, but chosen as characteristic and interesting, and showing to some extent the occupations of the period. Scanty traces indeed of what she was doing and thinking, they are yet enough to show a little of the anxiety and conflict of which she wrote in 1901 to Miss Margaret Richardson, in these words: ‘Once I had an interval of work, and I thought perhapsGod would not give it me again—but after that interval He called me here. I think now I can see better how I needed that time of comparative quiet and solitude, and a time to think over my failures, and a time to be more helpful to my family.’
Extracts from Diary of 1858‘February 17th.—Ash Wednesday. [To] S. M’s. [Applied] for school at Holloway. Lip-service. Snappish.Resolution.[to strive for more] humility, patience, charity.‘February 26th.—Miss Alston came. Idle [meditation] on peace. To be less anxious.‘February 27th.—History for seven hours. Church. Some idleness.‘March 5th.—Went to see Mr. Sankey about boy’s evening school. To church. History. Many impatient answers to Mama.‘March 6th.—History. Aunt E. came. Cross at not getting my own way. Some idleness. Impatient manner.‘March 7th, Sunday.—Went to H. E. without prayer. Not a devoted service. Morning prayer nothing but vain thoughts. At evening Church. Very cross.‘April 14th.—History. Elizabeth. Called on Mrs. Blenkarne. Dined at Chapter House. Idle. Indulgence in reading story at my time for evening prayer. Unpunctual in morning. Thoughtless about Mama.‘April 20th.—History, 16th Century. Felt terribly cross. O grant me calmness.‘April 22nd.—Went about servants till 11.30. Wrote to Miss Hyde. Still some tempest within.‘June 2nd.—Copying. Dinner party. Eliza at home. Worldly.‘June 3rd.—Headache. To Mrs. Northcote’s. [Wrote] preface.‘June 4th.—Saw Mrs. Barrett. Copied. Neglected prayer greatly. Very worldly.‘June 7th.—Wrote letters. A terrible blank of worldliness. Idle.‘June 9th.—Wrote to Miss Elwall. Letter from Cheltenham. M. copied certificates. Worldly. Spoke angrily to A.‘June 10th.—Wrote to Cheltenham. Saxon Exhibition. Selfish and worldly.‘June 13th.—S. Bartholomew’s twice. H. E. Inattentive twice. Unkind thoughts and words.‘June 14th.—Letter to go to Cheltenham.‘June 16th.—Elected.’
Extracts from Diary of 1858
‘February 17th.—Ash Wednesday. [To] S. M’s. [Applied] for school at Holloway. Lip-service. Snappish.Resolution.[to strive for more] humility, patience, charity.
‘February 26th.—Miss Alston came. Idle [meditation] on peace. To be less anxious.
‘February 27th.—History for seven hours. Church. Some idleness.
‘March 5th.—Went to see Mr. Sankey about boy’s evening school. To church. History. Many impatient answers to Mama.
‘March 6th.—History. Aunt E. came. Cross at not getting my own way. Some idleness. Impatient manner.
‘March 7th, Sunday.—Went to H. E. without prayer. Not a devoted service. Morning prayer nothing but vain thoughts. At evening Church. Very cross.
‘April 14th.—History. Elizabeth. Called on Mrs. Blenkarne. Dined at Chapter House. Idle. Indulgence in reading story at my time for evening prayer. Unpunctual in morning. Thoughtless about Mama.
‘April 20th.—History, 16th Century. Felt terribly cross. O grant me calmness.
‘April 22nd.—Went about servants till 11.30. Wrote to Miss Hyde. Still some tempest within.
‘June 2nd.—Copying. Dinner party. Eliza at home. Worldly.
‘June 3rd.—Headache. To Mrs. Northcote’s. [Wrote] preface.
‘June 4th.—Saw Mrs. Barrett. Copied. Neglected prayer greatly. Very worldly.
‘June 7th.—Wrote letters. A terrible blank of worldliness. Idle.
‘June 9th.—Wrote to Miss Elwall. Letter from Cheltenham. M. copied certificates. Worldly. Spoke angrily to A.
‘June 10th.—Wrote to Cheltenham. Saxon Exhibition. Selfish and worldly.
‘June 13th.—S. Bartholomew’s twice. H. E. Inattentive twice. Unkind thoughts and words.
‘June 14th.—Letter to go to Cheltenham.
‘June 16th.—Elected.’
‘He builded better than he knew.’—Emerson.
‘He builded better than he knew.’—Emerson.
‘He builded better than he knew.’—Emerson.
‘He builded better than he knew.’—Emerson.
‘He builded better than he knew.’—Emerson.
Dorothea Beale in age remembered that in youth she had planned ‘an air-castle school, with a central quadrangle, cloisters and rooms over.’
To few is it given, as it was given to her, to realise so nearly the dreams of youth, for few possess the sense of purpose and the indomitable will which fell to her portion. But the college of her vision did not come into being without a process of development so slow that for some years progress could hardly be recorded, nor without infinite disappointment even in matters which seemed at the time vital; not without ceaseless effort, seen and unseen, on the part of the Lady Principal.
We have reached, in the twentieth century, a period in the history of education in which schools may be said to be founded ready-made. A great and fine ‘plant,’ opening ceremonies, royal patronage, appear necessities from the beginning. The Ladies’ College, Cheltenham, was twenty years old before it had a building of its own, its first stone was laid by an unknown hand, its opening rite consisted of school prayers in the ordinary way on a Monday morning, at 9A.M., with the addition of a few words rather nervously read by the Lady Principal. The college has never had a patron, nor did it even have any specially distinguished visitor, till the Empress Frederick came in 1897.
The Ladies’ College did not originate with Miss Beale. She brought to it, when it was but a weakling and like to perish, all her dreams and all her energies. She made it emphatically her own; but its first inception was with a small number of Cheltenham residents, notably with the Reverend H. Walford Bellairs, then H.M. Inspector of Schools for Gloucestershire,[30]and the Reverend C. A. Bromby,[31]Principal of the Training Colleges. Its foundation was a continuation of work already begun in the town with the opening of Cheltenham College, in 1843. This was one of the earliest of the great nineteenth century public schools, and one of the very few which has no ancient origin. A very slight glance at the history of the town, which has produced two great colleges, will serve to show that their work in its midst has been almost that of a quiet and beneficent revolution.
The mild air and fertile soil of the great plain below the Cotswold Hills were recognised as early as the days of Edward the Confessor, when Cheltenham was called upon to furnish a large amount of bread for the royal kennels. For centuries only a little market town with a beautiful Early Gothic church on the banks of an insignificant stream, it crept out of obscurity in the pages of Ogilby who, in 1785, described it as inhabited by people ‘much given to plant tobacco, though they are suppressed by authority.’
Forty years after this the discovery of the medicinal properties of its waters made the place attractive to those who could afford to take the remedy, and in the later years of George the Third, it came to be the ‘Queen of watering places.’ Details of the long royal visit of 1788may be read in the pages of Fanny Burney and others. The King would afterwards speak of Cheltenham and the Vale of Gloucester as ‘the finest part of my kingdom that I have beheld.’ Other distinguished visitors followed: the Prince Regent, who gave a ball; Charles James Fox; Wellington, within a year of Waterloo; Louis Philippe and Marie Amélie in their exile; and many others, among whom, as a boy, came Byron, to wander, according to a continental biographer, ‘on the seashore at Cheltenham!’
As late as 1870 there was in Cheltenham scarcely a house which did not testify by its grandiose, pseudo-classic[32]architecture to the past magnificence of a town which had striven to be worthy of a court. Even to-day there are but few which do not follow the lines laid down by the builders of the early years of the nineteenth century, a time at which the town grew with mushroom speed. It was a period when population was rapidly increasing all over the country; but in few places were the leaps and bounds so marked as in Cheltenham, where in 1840, a census return was tenfold larger than it had been in 1804.
This rapid growth was due, less to the famous wells and pump-rooms than to the reputation of its climate, and the absence of any great winter severity, attractive to those who had lived in tropical countries. Hence Cheltenham became a favourite residence for Anglo-Indians, military and civil. The town grew perhaps a little less distinguished, but not less gay and popular. The fashion in Cheltenham waters passed; kings and dukes sought their ‘cure’ abroad; but it was possible to have balls and other amusements without a Prince Regent, while thehunting season especially became a time of festivity. And side by side with the lovers of pleasure, who formed so large and sparkling a part of Cheltenham society, existed those who took all life with deep, almost forbidding seriousness.
To meet the needs of the rapidly growing population during the first forty years of the nineteenth century, several churches were built under the auspices of different persons. Church-building in the days of proprietary sittings was a not unprofitable investment; there were also liberal benefactors to support Mr. Close, who was incumbent of Cheltenham for nearly thirty years, in his schemes for the welfare of his flock.
Francis Close, a disciple of Charles Simeon, came to Cheltenham in 1824, as curate-in-charge of Holy Trinity, a newly erected chapel-of-ease to the parish church. The living of Cheltenham was already at that time in the hands of Simeon, who had purchased it from its various patrons, and presented it to the Reverend C. Jervis. On the death of Mr. Jervis, Simeon appointed young Close to this important charge. From the first Mr. Close was a very popular preacher. ‘It was,’ says an admirer, ‘a new and interesting sight to see so singularly handsome a young man filled with such religious zeal.’ A man of pronounced and narrow views, immense activity and determination, combined with geniality and cheerfulness, he sought to regulate the ways of society, and to some extent succeeded. He ruled the town from the pulpit of the parish church as from a throne, and earned, among those who loved him least, the name of the ‘Pope of Cheltenham.’[33]He preached against racing,acting, dancing. But if, as has been said, he established dinner-parties and destroyed the theatre, he acted only with others of his school of thought. Those were the days of eating and drinking, since some form of recreation was necessary, and, moreover, abstinence had a suspiciously Roman look. They were days when all forms of art, not that of the theatre alone, were regarded with distrust. It is true that Mr. Close gave a lecture on ‘Literature and the Fine Arts considered as Legitimate Pursuits of a Religious Man’; he also preached a sermon entitled ‘The Restoration of Churches is the Restoration of Popery,’ and he said to the head-mistress of a fashionable boarding-school where dancing was included in the curriculum: ‘When Mrs. Close wished my daughters taught dancing, I reminded her of her marriage vow.’
Mr. Close’s energies took visible and permanent shape in the buildings which arose during his long incumbency. Eight churches grew up around the parish church, but that, alas! was not their model. Most of the new ones displayed all the worst features of a debased style of church architecture: a diminutive chancel, three-decker arrangements for parson and clerk, high pews, with safe doors for the congregation.
National schools were built, and training colleges founded, also under the direction of Mr. Close, and he took his share in the institution of the Proprietary College for Boys, in 1843.
With the new churches came new clergy, among whom, the most popular name at the time, was that of Archibald Boyd, vicar of Christchurch, a very eloquent preacher who brought the little schoolroom in the hamlet of Alstone, where he lectured on Sunday evenings, into rivalry with the parish church. To-day, he is famousfor having had as his curate, for five years, the young Frederick Robertson, whose afternoon sermons at Christchurch, in spite of the suspicion of unorthodoxy which early began to attach itself to his name, drew many thoughtful hearers, such as the Principal of Cheltenham College.
The most leading mind at the time among the younger clergy was that of Charles Henry Bromby, who became vicar of St. Paul’s in 1843. He was a man of large mental gifts, and had special perception of the intellectual needs of his day. The Working Men’s Club, which he established in his parish, was among the very first in the country. All the great educational institutions of Cheltenham are indebted to his outlook and zeal. Joint-founder of Cheltenham College, and later, though he took no public part and earned no name in the matter, of that for ‘Young Ladies and Children,’ his most active interest and work was for the teaching of the poor. He became first Principal of the Training Colleges[34]for headmasters and mistresses of national schools, starting the work on wise and secure lines, and rapidly bringing it to the front among that of kindred institutions.
Mr. Bellairs was actively as well as zealously associated with Mr. Bromby in all the great schemes, by which Cheltenham, rich and poor, was to be enlightened, and in the case of the Proprietary College for Ladies, it is his name which comes to the front, and it was in his house that the first meeting to draw up its constitution was held.
There was every reason to hope that a high-class day-school for girls, then almost unknown, might succeed in Cheltenham, where parents had had a successful experienceof such a school for their boys. Everywhere, people, who cared about a good education for girls, found it difficult to obtain even at great cost. Many liked to keep their children with them; those who were indifferent would be glad to avail themselves of the cheaper method of the day-school, provided it could be run on exclusive lines. There had been for some years in the town, select boarding schools, where a few day-scholars were received. The advantage over these of a large public school, necessarily of a more permanent character than a small private institution could be, was obvious.
At the meeting in the house of Mr. Bellairs, on September 30, 1853, a date which Miss Beale has noted as the birthday of the Ladies’ College, there were present but three others. These were the Reverend W. Dobson, Principal of Cheltenham College, the Reverend H. A. Holden, Vice-Principal, and Dr. S. E. Comyn. One other gentleman should be named among these early builders, namely, Mr. Nathaniel Hartland. Colonel Fitzmaurice was also a member of the first council.
The founders of this college and day-school for girls were anxious to make it clear that their aim was to develop in the pupils character and fitness for the duties of later life. Hence the first report states that it was intended ‘to afford, on reasonable terms, an education based upon religious principles which, preserving the modesty and gentleness of the female character, should so far cultivate [a girl’s] intellectual powers as to fit her for the discharge of those responsible duties which devolve upon her as a wife, mother, mistress and friend, the natural companion and helpmeet for man.’ In framing the constitutions Mr. Bellairs and his colleagues had before their minds the successful College for Boys, andadopted its rules with regard to religious instruction, and the social rank of the pupils.
The draft of the resolutions, made at the first meeting, may still be read. Hardly less remarkable than the development of later days is the permanent nature of the impress given to the College at its first start. Some of the resolutions were:—
‘That an Institution for the daughters and young children of Noblemen and Gentlemen be established in Cheltenham, and be entitled the Cheltenham College for the education of young Ladies and Children.‘The College to be established by means of one hundred shares of £10 each; the possessor of each share to have the power of nominating a Pupil, and a vote at annual and special meetings....‘That the management of the College for the ensuing year shall be vested in the Founders, viz.... who for this purpose shall be constituted the Committee of Management after the expiration of the first year, exclusive of the Treasurer and Honorary Secretary, who will beex officiomembers of the Board, they being shareholders and members of the Church of England....‘That the College be under the direction of a Principal, a Lady from whom the pupils will receive religious instruction at appointed times in accordance with the doctrine and the teaching of the Church of England....‘That at the end of each year the pupils be examined by competent persons appointed by the Committee.‘That the College shall consist of two departments, the Junior for children of both sexes, admissible after five years of age, the boys to be removed when they have attained their eighth year.‘The appointment of the Lady Principal and all subordinate teachers and officers to be vested in the Committee.’
‘That an Institution for the daughters and young children of Noblemen and Gentlemen be established in Cheltenham, and be entitled the Cheltenham College for the education of young Ladies and Children.
‘The College to be established by means of one hundred shares of £10 each; the possessor of each share to have the power of nominating a Pupil, and a vote at annual and special meetings.
...
‘That the management of the College for the ensuing year shall be vested in the Founders, viz.... who for this purpose shall be constituted the Committee of Management after the expiration of the first year, exclusive of the Treasurer and Honorary Secretary, who will beex officiomembers of the Board, they being shareholders and members of the Church of England....
‘That the College be under the direction of a Principal, a Lady from whom the pupils will receive religious instruction at appointed times in accordance with the doctrine and the teaching of the Church of England....
‘That at the end of each year the pupils be examined by competent persons appointed by the Committee.
‘That the College shall consist of two departments, the Junior for children of both sexes, admissible after five years of age, the boys to be removed when they have attained their eighth year.
‘The appointment of the Lady Principal and all subordinate teachers and officers to be vested in the Committee.’
With few alterations these resolutions passed into the prospectus issued to the public in November 1853, an exact copy of which will be found in the appendix.[35]Experimental prospectuses, which never left the hands ofthe Committee, exist to show how the founders formed and modified their views for the College. It was proposed at one time to have a noble patron and a visitor, besides the working Committee; but as Miss Beale somewhat whimsically relates, this was found to be impracticable. ‘It was thought that it would add to the prestige of the College, and diminish the prejudice which then existed, to have a distinguished patron, and so Lord de Saumerez, then resident in Cheltenham, was applied to, but in vain. So there was no Patron.’[36]There was also no visitor until 1875, when Dr. Ellicott, then Bishop of Gloucester, kindly undertook the charge. The difficulty of securing patronage was probably what caused the Council, in virtue of one of their own rules, to invite Mr. Close to accept the office of President, with a seat at the Board. At the same time Mr. Bellairs was appointed Vice-President.
In the first instance it was intended that the College should be confined to day-scholars; then, in case this restriction should limit the scope of the work and perhaps injure it financially, a sort of half-measure was planned, and it was proposed to state that: ‘the Committee will not interfere with any arrangements made by the Parents and Friends of pupils for Boarding their Children, provided the numbers in any given Boarding-House do not exceed six. Should Boarding-Houses ever be opened offering accommodation to a greater number of pupils than six, the Committee reserve to themselves the power of insisting upon and conferring a License, before Children in such Boarding-Houses be allowed the privilege of becoming Students in the College.’
As early as the 1st of November three ladies had been found to undertake boarding-houses, and they were notrestricted as to numbers. The low terms of the boarding-houses (£40 a year including all expenses, of course without the tuition fees) suggest that the ideas of the liberal-minded Committee may have forestalled those of the future Lady Principal, ever eager to help on those who deserved but could not afford education. The tuition fees were on the same low scale; from six guineas to twenty guineas, and including pianoforte lessons, class singing, elementary drawing and needlework, besides English subjects and French.
Shares had been taken up to the number of one hundred and fifty-seven, so the Council had enough money at their disposal to justify the necessary initial outlay. After an unsuccessful effort to obtain Lake House, which its owner declined to let for the purposes of a school, Cambray House, a fine old Georgian building with a beautiful garden, was taken at a rent of £200 a year. Some hundreds of pounds were spent in making this house suitable for its purpose, arranging a schoolroom (40 by 30 feet), a system of heating, and so on, while a part of it was set aside as a residence for the Lady Principal. The Committee appointed in this capacity Mrs. Procter, widow of Colonel Procter, ‘a highly educated officer,’ but her daughter Annie Procter, who was called Vice-Principal, was the actual head of the College. ‘The former,’ ran the first report, ‘is possessed of that age and experience which are necessary for the training of the young; the latter of that youth and vigour which are necessary for teaching.’ A younger sister had the post of assistant secretary, and several regular teachers and professors were also appointed.
Cambray House.From an old engraving.
Cambray House.From an old engraving.
The College was actually opened on February 13, 1854, the pupils, eighty-two in number, having been examined a week before that date. Thus the inaugurationceremony was the actual beginning of work. When writing her Jubilee history of the College, Miss Beale collected reminiscences from some who were present on the opening day. Nothing more impressive was forthcoming than a scrimmage of dogs in the cloak-room, the calling over of names, followed by immediate sorting into classes already arranged as a result of the examination, and that ‘various old gentlemen promenaded about the first few days, and held conclaves in a Board-Room on the right hand of the front door.’ The age of the pupils varied considerably from that of tiny mites to that of grown-up girls. They were arranged in different departments, the lowest being a kind of infant school on raised benches.
At first the numbers increased rapidly, and by the end of the year there were one hundred and twenty pupils. But the fees were too low, and the Committee soon had cause for anxiety over expenses. In the first year, 1854, more than £1300 was expended in regular salaries and in payments to visiting teachers; the accounts in December showed a deficit of £400. Matters improved but slowly in 1855, and in order to lessen expenses, various changes were suggested, such as the substitution of German, which the Vice-Principal could teach, for Latin, and an arrangement by which the pianoforte should be taught on a class system. In the general meeting of that year, it was resolved no longer to admit boys to the College, and with them disappeared the whole of the infant department, not to reappear till the Kindergarten was opened in 1882.
This change led to a slight diminution of numbers, and the report of the year 1856 (published in and dated February 1857), while it embodied many words of praise from the examiners and showed a balance of receiptsabove expenditure in the current expenses, yet breathed a consciousness of many difficulties and obstacles to be overcome. It was acknowledged that had it been desirable to purchase furniture for the Lady Principal instead of paying her £25 a year for the use of her own, it could not have been done from the funds in hand. ‘In conclusion,’ said the Chairman, ‘your Council beg to express their thanks to those parents who, during the past year, have continued to place confidence in the College and its system. On their own part and on that of the Lady Principal and the Vice-Principal, they desire to assure the public that no efforts shall be wanting on their part to amend what may appear, on mature consideration, to be defective.... They cannot depart from their fundamental principle, which, as they stated, is soundness rather than show;magna est veritas et prævalebit.’
Next year, 1857, the numbers crept down, first to ninety-three, then to eighty-nine, and the capital account, which had never gone up, was little above £400. Shares which should have been £10, were offered for half that sum. The want of success was partly due to want of harmony between Miss Procter and the Council on points of educational method. In May 1858, when the numbers were again reduced, and the prospect of improvement very small, the Procters resigned; also the ladies who took boarders one by one gave up. So poor was the outlook for the College at this time that the Council might have felt justified in abandoning the whole scheme. Fortunately, however, those who possessed the foresight and courage, which could still carry it on, were supported by the circumstance that the lease of Cambray House had a couple more years to run. So it came to pass that in May 1858, within a fortnight of Miss Procter’s resignation, the Council advertised for a Lady Principal thus:—
Cheltenham Ladies’ College‘A Vacancy having occurred in the Office of Lady Principal, Candidates for the Appointment are requested to apply by letter (with references) before the 1st of June, to J. P. Bell, Esq., Hon. Sec., Cheltenham.‘A well-educated and experienced Lady (between the ages of 35 and 45) is desired, capable of conducting an Institution with not less than 100 day-pupils.‘A competent knowledge of German and French, and a good acquaintance with general English Literature, Arithmetic, and the common branches of female education, are expected.‘Salary, upwards of £200 a year, with furnished apartments, and other advantages.‘No Testimonials to be sent until applied for, and no answers will be returned except to Candidates apparently eligible.’
Cheltenham Ladies’ College
‘A Vacancy having occurred in the Office of Lady Principal, Candidates for the Appointment are requested to apply by letter (with references) before the 1st of June, to J. P. Bell, Esq., Hon. Sec., Cheltenham.
‘A well-educated and experienced Lady (between the ages of 35 and 45) is desired, capable of conducting an Institution with not less than 100 day-pupils.
‘A competent knowledge of German and French, and a good acquaintance with general English Literature, Arithmetic, and the common branches of female education, are expected.
‘Salary, upwards of £200 a year, with furnished apartments, and other advantages.
‘No Testimonials to be sent until applied for, and no answers will be returned except to Candidates apparently eligible.’
The shareholders requested a general meeting in order to receive an explanation of the cause which led to the resignation of Miss Procter, and this was convened for June 2. The Committee was occupied during the fortnight which succeeded this in selecting and interviewing some of the fifty candidates for the Headship, and Miss Beale was elected on June 13. In July Miss Procter took her final leave in the following letter to Mr. Hartland:—