Phoebe Stanton among last of Adelaide's many women operating 19th Century small private schools often for girls
Phoebe Stanton on her tricycle on her 90th birthday in about 1935. She was part of Mrs Stanton and Misses Stantons Blanche Villa School at Glenelg from 1867 to the late 1890s. At left is some of the list, compiled by Helen M.J. Reid, of nearly 200 small schools and their duration, run mainly by women in Adelaide and beyond in the 19th Century.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Phoebe Stanton was one of the last surviving figures from the 19th Century Adelaide phenomenon of small dame or “ladies” schools, often run by individual or small groups of women usually for girls in middle class suburbs. Mostly short-lived, there were nearly 200 of these schools in Adelaide and country towns between 1850 and 1925.
Phoebe Stanton was one, with Kathleen and Esther, of the daughters of Anglican rector, the Rev. Lionel Stanton, firstly at Burra from 1965 before the family moved to the two-storey Blanche Villa on Broadway at Glenelg. Stanton’s wife Anna, from a wealthy educated background, opened a Seaside School of First Class Education at the home, assisted by her daughters and “competent masters”. Kathleen, after marrying Strickland Gough Kingston (half brother of future premier George Cameron Kingston) started her own selective girls’ Yoothamurra school nearby at Glenelg.
Mrs Stanton and Misses Stantons Blanche Villa School continued from 1867 to the late 1890s. Future Adelaide scientific genius (Thorburn) Brailsford Robertson was among the students and boarders at Misses Stanton School. Another student was Bessie Mabel Earle who married Henry Wills Rischbieth, wool merchant, at Kent Town Wesleyan Church in 1898 and next year moved to Western Australia where she became politically active in that state and internationally, with her attraction to easter religions making her “the most significant theosophic feminist in Australia”.
Other examples of the the small schools run by women in Adelaide city and suburbs and beyond are:
Mrs Bell’s Adelaide Institution for the Education of Young Ladies (185-54, Adelaide), The Misses Barnards’ Establishment for the Education of Young Ladies (1856-62, North Adelaide), Miss Archer’s School (1886-2903, North Adelaide), Miss Bridgman’s Oxford House (1857-85, Adelaide), Mrs Ferneley’s Young Ladies School (1857-80, Adelaide), Miss Shawyer and Miss Moore’s School(1869-1873, North Adelaide), Monsieur and Madame Marval School for Young Ladies (1868-77, Adelaide), Misses Stenhouse School (1883-1905), Miss Chapman’s Halifax House Seminary (1870-1903, Adelaide), Mrs Harcus’s School (1873-1896, Hackney), The Misses Alderseys Tsong Giaou School (1863-1903, McLaren Vale), Mrs and Miss Sweetapple School (1873-83, Port Adelaide), Mrs and Miss S.E. Brunskill School for Young Ladies (1867-1882, Semaphore), Miss M.A. Overbury’s School for Girls (1892-1920, Hawthorn). Miss Niven’s Southfield School and Kindergarten (1877-1905, Parkside), The Misses Tilley Hardwick College (1877-1905, St Peters), Miss Newberry’s School (1877-1905, St Peters), Mrs Henry Davis and Miss Davis school (1857-78, Adelaide), Miss Meek’s Morning Classes (1875-95, Glenelg).
