Headmasters protest in South Australia in 1897 as Blanche McNamara made Australia's first female school inspector
Blanche McNamara, Australia's first female school inspector, had been first assistant in the girls department at North Adelaide Model School in Tynte Street from 1883. The school, with the band pictured in front of staff and students in about 1890, was designed by E.John Woods.
School image courtesy State Library of South Australia
The appointment of Australia’s first woman inspector to South Australia's state schools, Blanche McNamara, in 1897 was resisted by the males who had dominated as heads of state schools, although most teachers were women, after education became compulsory in 1875.
McNamara’s family arrived in South Australia from Ireland in 1852. The sixth of nine children, she was educated by Dominican nuns at St Mary's Convent school in Franklin Street, Adelaide city.
In 1875, Blanche McNamara became a pupil teacher at Rundle Street School in Adelaide city. Her first appointment in 1879 was to the girls' department of Le Fevre Peninsula Public School. In 1883, she was appointed first assistant in the girls’ department of the prestigious North Adelaide Model School, and was promoted to headmistress at Port Adelaide school in 1890 – in charge of the girls’ and infant departments but subordinate to the headmaster.
As a result of South Australian women getting the vote in 1895, the government began appointing a few women to important public offices. In 1897, the education minister John Cockburn announced that one of the two vacancies for state school inspectors would be for a woman.
The most senior headmasters in city schools objected immediately, with an unsuccessful deputation to the minister. At a special meeting of the Adelaide Teachers' Association, the male headmasters defeated a motion by headmistresses supporting a woman inspector. The men said there were no suitable candidates among the headmistresses and not enough work for a woman inspector. They also feared “petticoat government”.
Blanche McNamara’s appointment was surprising as she was most junior headmistress in the education department. She was required to report on the women students at the teachers’ training college, the Advanced School for Girls and the girls’ and infant departments in 25 city and suburban schools. She also visited some south-east region country schools.
McNamara competence in her pioneering role as inspector made her a role model for women teachers.
But she recommended reshaping girls’ education so as “to better fit them for the duties they might in after years, perform as daughters, wives and mothers”. She suggested that pupil teachers and teachers training college students should be taught how to sew and taught how to teach sewing in a group way. In the early 20th Century, this more scientific approach to housewifery was a principle of the domestic economy movement.
McNamara’s time as an inspector was brief. She contracted tuberculosis in 1898 and died in 1900.
