Eliza Lowe and the Founding of Woodard Girls' Schools

“In its detailed account of the life of one of the great pioneers of education for girls in the nineteenthcentury, this is an engaging and insightful read. Penny Thompson, a beneficiary of the legacy ofNathaniel Woodard and Eliza Lowe, offers far more, though. She demonstrates powerfully how debatesand achievements of the past resonate with contemporary concerns. It’s a project I wholeheartedlycommend.“The Rt Revd Dr John Inge, Lord Bishop of Worcester, President of the Woodard Corporation”Thompson achieves an impressive depth of research, and applies it painstakingly to build apicture of these amazing people. Striking a readable balance between academic research and warmbiography, this book’s jigsaw-like interweaving of tightly referenced material will shed new light onthe emergence of the Suffrage movement, the educational ambitions of young Victorian womenand the role of Eliza Lowe in making them achievable through her schools.“Lynn Murthwaite, retired Assistant Headteacher of Chesterfield High School, Crosby, Liverpool”Penny Thompson’s intricate narrative takes up a methodological challenge. Evidence of womeneducators and their pupils is frequently missing or overlooked and she pieces together a wide rangeof sources that highlight Eliza Lowe’s role in the development of girls’ education. The genderednature of Lowe’s complex social, economic, and religious networks of place and space emphasises thecentrality of education in understanding both past and present society.“Stephanie Spencer, Professor of History of Women’s Education at the University of Winchester

Penny Thompson is a retired teacher living in north Liverpool. She taught Religious Education in comprehensive schools in Sefton for many years. She is the author of Whatever Happened to Religious Education, published by Lutterworth in 2004. She has been involved with 3 other books on RE, most recently with Marius Felderhof with whom she co-edited Teaching Virtue, Bloomsbury, 2014. She was a pupil of the School of S. Mary and S. Anne from 1959-1966 and is a Circle Secretary of the Guild. She is married and their daughter Ursula attended the school between 1990 and 1997.