A Victorian Educational Pioneer’s Evangelicalism, Leadership, and Love Maynard’s Mistakes Pauline A. Phipps A Victorian Educational Pioneer’s Evangelicalism, Leadership, and Love Pauline A. Phipps A Victorian Educational Pioneer’s Evangelicalism, Leadership, and Love Maynard’s Mistakes Pauline A. Phipps University of Windsor Windsor, ON, Canada ISBN 978-3-031-13998-7 ISBN 978-3-031-13999-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13999-4 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For Alan A cknowledgments For the twenty-year archival journey that shaped and inspired this book, I first thank Dr. Deborah Gorham, my doctoral adviser in History at Carleton University, Ottawa, who encouraged my research into the rela- tively unknown English educational pioneer, Constance Louisa Maynard (1849–1935). My doctoral dissertation translated into my published biography, Constance Maynard’s Passions: Religion, Sexuality, and an English Educational Pioneer 1849–1935 (2015), which analyzes how faith shaped Maynard’s crucial role in women’s higher learning and passions for key loves in her life. In comparison, this new book emerges from my dis- covery of sensational new facts in the archive about Maynard’s behavior as an educator, patriotic visionary, and pioneer student of psychology. Indeed, the unveiling of extraordinary micro-historical events caused by Maynard offers readers a rare window into a past subject’s mindset. For example, how Maynard’s bizarre longings for her student lover ruined the student’s well-being and initial academic career. Yet Maynard’s “mistakes” also provide new insight into Victorian concerns that, astonishingly, per- tain to our current moment. Certainly, serendipity in the archive inspires historians to ask new ques- tions, and sometimes, revise former interpretations of the past. For this, I am grateful to former Queen Mary University of London archivist Anselm Nye, and Honorary archivist and historian Dr. Janet Sondheimer, who first introduced me to Maynard’s numerous publications and unpublished diaries, autobiography, journals, and correspondence. Additional archival information in this book has been collected over the years from Girton College Cambridge, Bedford College London, the University of St. vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Andrews Library Scotland, and Royal Holloway College London. In recent years, Queen Mary University of London Archive officers, Lorraine Screene and Florence Dall, have directed me towards the handwritten Council of Westfield Minutes and Maynard’s newsletter, from which I discovered new information. They also made available many of the archi- val photographs in this book. The invaluable contributions of research assistants Callum Murgu, Amanda Alchin, Matthew McLaughlin, and Alexander Cramer were helped by funding from the University of Windsor’s Outstanding Scholar program and the Department of History. I also thank the four anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and individuals including Emily Russell, commission editor for history at Palgrave Macmillan, Tryphena R., project coordinator at Palgrave Macmillan, and Sugapriya Jaganathan, project manager at Palgrave Macmillan for their interest in this project and hard work in bringing it to publication. Last, my husband, Alan, has had patience and love over our many years together. My daughter and son, Dr. Kelly Phipps and Dr. Gregory Phipps, respectively, also have academic careers and publishing records that with their unique personalities are sources of pride for me. c ontents 1 Introduction 1 2 Longing “for Excitement of Feeling,” 1849–1871 23 3 Evangelical Prophet at Girton, 1872–1875 47 4 Difficult Relations, 1882–1891 73 5 Colonial Affairs, 1897–1904 99 6 “Noisy Rabble of Our Fears,” 1917–1934 127 Bibliography 153 Index 161 ix l f ist of igures Fig. 1.1 Constance Maynard aged thirty- eight, ca. 1888, with Bible in hand. Courtesy of Queen Mary University of London Archives/Westfield College/WFD. Reference WFD/25/1/1. 3 Fig. 1.2 Discarded page from Maynard’s autobiography, written in 1915. Courtesy of the Queen Mary University of London Archives/Westfield College/WFD. Reference CLM/6/3/1. Notice the X in the margin and lines through comments at the top of page 341 that Maynard now possibly thought discriminatory. She had referred to Girton students R. Aitkin and M. A. Kingsland “as the first drops of the shower that ha[d] brought to so low a level of the refinement of … Women’s Colleges.” They had attended the new public middle-class girls’ “Grammar (high) Schools” before Girton rather than the elite (upper-class) private boarding schools for girls.  14 Fig. 2.1 Constance Maynard’s green book, 1869, page number 12 and 13. Courtesy of Queen Mary University of London Archives/ Westfield College/CLM. Reference CLM/1/5. Writing at age nineteen, we glean Maynard’s upbringing and conflicts. The first paragraph on page 12 concludes that “faith and prayer are really stronger than sin [worldliness], because Christ is stronger than Satan.” The bottom of page 12 and the top of page 13 then ruminate upon a former Belstead student named Edith, and her sister Fanny, whose “evil” love of dancing, parties, and the theatre were encouraged by their “weak” parents. Fanny had died that autumn, and now apparently, Edith wondered “if Fanny would have done just as she did, had she known her end was near.” 35 xi xii LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 3.1 (Left) Groups of early Hitchin students, ca. 1870. Louisa Lumsden is seated to the far right and Rachel Cook is seated next to her, with pioneers Emily Townsend, Isabel Gibson, and Anna Lloyd standing behind them. Lumsden and Cook were among the first women to complete studies in the Classics. Courtesy of St. Leonards School Archives, St. Andrews. (Right) Groups of early Hitchin students, ca. 1873. Amy Mantle, who would form a relationship with Maynard at Girton in 1874, is standing in the middle of the back row. Courtesy of St. Leonards School Archives, St. Andrews. 52 Fig. 3.2 Constance Maynard at Girton with fellow members of the Girton Bible meeting, ca. 1874. Maynard is seated on the left-hand side with her arm around Amy Mantle. Courtesy of Queen Mary University of London Archives/Westfield College/WFD. Reference WFD/25/ 1/1/1. 62 Fig. 4.1 External view of the back garden at Maresfield Terrace with the Westfield College group, 1889. Courtesy of Queen Mary University of London Archives: Westfield College. Reference WFD/25/3/4. This image of Westfield’s “annual garden party” examples how middle-class college women negotiated femininity with the masculine corporate. As Constance Maynard as Mistress pours tea, her resident staff members, Anne Richardson, and Mabel Beloe, seem prominent in the BA academic dress as graduates of the University of London. Maynard was denied the gown and cap because she completed her studies at Oxbridge. 80 Fig. 4.2 External view of Kidderpore, the white neo-Classical stucco mansion to the far right, which became the “second” Westfield in 1891. Courtesy of Queen Mary University of London Archives/Westfield College/WFD. Reference WFD/25/3/1. 88 Fig. 4.3 Westfield College (at Kidderpore), 1894, showing the group of forty eight students and three lecturers. Maynard, who particularly disliked Westfield’s “secularist” ionic columns, is seated in the middle of the first row wearing her white lace cap. Courtesy of Queen Mary University of London Archives/ Westfield College/WFD. Reference WFD/25/3/1. 89 Fig. 4.4 Early Westfield College Group, 1885, at Maresfield Terrace, at full capacity with eighteen students, three Resident staff members, and Maynard, aged thirty-six, who is center of the second row. Kate Tristram is to Maynard’s left, and staff member Frances Gray is to her right with a book on her lap.