Frances Buss
Encyclopedia
Frances Mary Buss was a headmistress and an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
pioneer of women's education.
The daughter of Robert William Buss
Robert William Buss
Robert William Buss was a Victorian artist, etcher and illustrator perhaps best known for his painting Dickens' Dream.-Early career:...
, a painter and etcher, and his wife, Frances Fleetwood, Buss was one of six of their ten children to survive into adulthood. Her grandparents, whom she was visiting in Aldersgate
Aldersgate
Aldersgate was a gate in the London Wall in the City of London, which has given its name to a ward and Aldersgate Street, a road leading north from the site of the gate, towards Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington.-History:...
, sent her to a private school housed in the most basic accommodation "...to get me out of the way". Next she was sent to a similar school in Kentish Town
Kentish Town
Kentish Town is an area of north west London, England in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The most widely accepted explanation of the name of Kentish Town is that it derived from 'Ken-ditch' meaning the 'bed of a waterway'...
which she remembered as simply consisting of children learning Murray's Grammar. Aged 10 she attended a more advanced school in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
; by the age of fourteen she herself was teaching there and by sixteen she was occasionally left in charge of the school.
Her father's career as an artist being at times unsuccessful, to help the family finances her mother set up a private school in Clarence Road, Kentish Town, in 1845, at which Frances assisted, and which was based on the ideas of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach....
. During 1848–9, she attended evening lectures at the newly opened Queen's College
Queen's College, London
Queen's College is an independent school for girls aged 11–18. It is located in central London at numbers 43-49, Harley Street. Founded in 1848 by F. D. Maurice, Professor of English Literature and History at King's College London along with a committee of patrons, the College was the first...
in Harley Street
Harley Street
Harley Street is a street in the City of Westminster in London, England which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery.- Overview :...
, London. She was taught by F. D. Maurice, Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley
Charles Kingsley was an English priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and northeast Hampshire.-Life and character:...
, and R. C. Trench, and gained certificates in French, German and Geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
. To Dorothea Beale
Dorothea Beale
Dorothea Beale LLD was a suffragist, educational reformer, author and Principal of the Cheltenham Ladies' College.Born in Bishopsgate, England, she was the founder of St Hilda's College, Oxford....
, a contemporary at Queen's, she described the education she had gained there as opening ‘a new life to me, I mean intellectually’.
The Buss's school was renamed the North London Collegiate School
North London Collegiate School
North London Collegiate School is an independent day school for girls founded in 1850 in Camden Town, and now in the London Borough of Harrow.The Good Schools Guide called the school an "Academically stunning outer London school in a glorious setting which, in 2003, demonstrated its refusal to rest...
and moved to larger premises in Camden Street on 4 April, 1850. Buss was its first Principal and remained so for the rest of her life. Under her headship, the school became a model for girls' education. By 1865 the school had 200 day girls, with a few boarders, but was still run as a private, family concern, with her father Robert William Buss
Robert William Buss
Robert William Buss was a Victorian artist, etcher and illustrator perhaps best known for his painting Dickens' Dream.-Early career:...
and her brother Septimus Buss teaching Art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
and Scripture
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
respectively. In July 1870 Frances Buss handed over the school to trustees, and in the following year she founded the Camden School for Girls
Camden School for Girls
The Camden School for Girls is a comprehensive secondary school for girls, with a co-educational sixth form, in the London Borough of Camden in North London. It has about one thousand students of ages eleven to eighteen, and specialist-school status as a Music College...
with the aim of offering more affordable education for girls. She was the first ever headmistress.
Buss was at the forefront of campaigns for the endowment of girls' schools, and for girls to be allowed to sit public examinations and to enter universities. She became the founding president of the Association of Head Mistresses in 1874, a position she held until 1894, and was also involved in establishing the Teachers' Guild in 1883 and the Cambridge Training College (later Hughes Hall
Hughes Hall, Cambridge
Hughes Hall, is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. It is often informally called Hughes, and is the oldest of the four Cambridge colleges which admit only mature students...
) for training teachers in 1885.
In 1869 she became the first woman Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of the College of Preceptors
College of Teachers
The College of Teachers is an examining body and learned society of teachers, professors and associated professionals who work in education in the United Kingdom and elsewhere....
, helping to establish the College's professorship of the science and art of education in 1872. Her election to a Fellowship of the College in 1873 was the only public recognition she ever received. She was also a member of the Council of the Teachers' Training and Registration Society.
Buss was also a suffragist, participating in the Kensington Society, a woman's discussion society, and the London Suffrage Committee.
Her name is associated with that of Dorothea Beale
Dorothea Beale
Dorothea Beale LLD was a suffragist, educational reformer, author and Principal of the Cheltenham Ladies' College.Born in Bishopsgate, England, she was the founder of St Hilda's College, Oxford....
in a satirical rhyme:
- Miss Buss and Miss Beale,
CupidCupidIn Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
's darts do not feel.
How different from us,
Miss Beale and Miss Buss.
In spring of each year Camden School for Girls
Camden School for Girls
The Camden School for Girls is a comprehensive secondary school for girls, with a co-educational sixth form, in the London Borough of Camden in North London. It has about one thousand students of ages eleven to eighteen, and specialist-school status as a Music College...
holds a Founder's Day to commemorate Frances Mary Buss and her legacy. Pupils wear posies of yellow, white, purple and green, to represent the daffodils blooming as Buss was buried, the snow which fell at her funeral, and the colours of the suffragette movement.
Models
The educational values that Frances Buss taught at the North London Collegiate SchoolNorth London Collegiate School
North London Collegiate School is an independent day school for girls founded in 1850 in Camden Town, and now in the London Borough of Harrow.The Good Schools Guide called the school an "Academically stunning outer London school in a glorious setting which, in 2003, demonstrated its refusal to rest...
became the model used by Edith Aitkin, a former pupil, when establishing Pretoria High School for Girls
Pretoria High School for Girls
Pretoria High School for Girls, also called Girls High or PHSG, is a public, fee charging, English medium high school for girls located in Hatfield, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa.-Second Anglo-Boer War:...
in Pretoria, South Africa in 1902.
External links
- Spartacus: Frances Buss
- History of North London Collegiate School
- Association of Head Mistresses
- AIM25: Frances Mary Buss and family
kabita has meet her and had an interview with her in the late 60s when she was bout 91!
ONE YEAR BEFPORE SHE DIED!
However, the above sentence has no relevance to factual points, other to point out that Frances Mary Buss may have done interviews.