Campbell-Day, Mary; (2021) Mary Gurney (1836 - 1917) and the reform of English female education. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The thesis recovers Mary Gurney’s 55 years of significant work for female education and analyses its legacies up to the present. Gurney was one of the leading educationalists of nineteenth and twentieth-century England. The thesis provides an answer to the question: how far and in what ways did Gurney make a contribution to English female education? During her career, she worked as an important policy-maker and administrator for at least twenty educational organisations, often simultaneously and in the case of some for between 25 and 45 years. However, for a variety of reasons, which are examined, her professional practice was largely excluded from the historical record. Feminist and networking theories are used to assist in the analysis of evidence and to clarify conclusions. Gurney can be seen as a liberal rather than a radical feminist, who used networking to support her career. Indeed, Gurney worked closely for decades with many other important English reformers, such as Millicent Garrett Fawcett who classified Gurney as a leader in the educational wing of the Victorian and Edwardian women’s movement. Over a hundred other members of Gurney’s network are also identified in the thesis and their professional connections with Gurney are analysed. Nevertheless, her networking did not always provide the support she was seeking. Moreover, at times her work was complex, arduous, and not always successful in the ways she sought. Apart from rebalancing the historiographical neglect of Gurney’s significant career and legacies, this thesis also enhances the history of some educational institutions and recovers parts of other educationalists’ work connected to female education. In addition, it produces new measurements of a Victorian and Edwardian network and it adds more depth to several perspectives reached through the lens of feminism about the educational work of women in the past.

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