|
|
The
school bell rang out signalling the end of
lessons for the day.
Clara Collet, who had been teaching at
Wyggeston Girls’ School for the previous six
years, was looking forward to the evening ahead.
William
Morris was to give a lecture for the Leicester
Secular Society to which Clara had been
affiliated through her friendship with the
Gimson family.
This was despite her being a believer in
God herself, albeit as a non-conformist
Unitarian.
Morris was to give a lecture entitled ‘Art and
Socialism’.
It was to prove an interesting talk
despite his rather dry delivery as he read the
paper with little expression. |
 |
|
She
was very fond of her life at Leicester. Having
left London at the age of 18, she had been daunted at the
prospect of teaching girls almost the same age
as herself so far from her home.
However, she soon settled down at the
school which was so new it ‘was
in a very unfinished state, especially the lower
rooms, and we were constantly meeting the
workmen in our journeys up and down’.
The
curriculum was ‘new’ too.
It was to include mainly academic
subjects and included callisthenics.
At this time it was generally felt that
‘over brain power’ and too much strenuous
activity was bad for a woman’s health and many
of the parents objected in the beginning to this
type of regime.
Luckily
very few of the new girls suffered as a result
and the school soon became very popular both
from the students’ and their parents’
perspective! |
|
The
Gimson family had become Clara’s closest
friends in the area.
Josiah Gimson was a successful local
manufacturer of machinery.
Despite being rich he had a
well-developed social conscience and wished to
extend co-operative activities, improve
conditions in
Leicester
and achieve equality without revolution.
He was an ardent supporter of the Secular
Society. His
growing family agreed with his views. Clara had
become especially friendly, firstly with
Sydney
and later with Ernest, two of his sons, with
whom she spent many evenings dancing and
socialising at local events.
She was to remain in touch with Ernest
for much of her life. |
| The
reputation of Morris as a great poet and
decorative craftsman, not to mention politician
(he had just been involved in the formation of
the Socialist League), meant that the family
were nervous about entertaining so great a man.
However, they need not have worried.
Sydney
later wrote,
‘Ernest
and I went to the station, and, two minutes
after his train had come in, we were at home
with him and captivated by his personality.
His was a delightfully breezy, virile
personality.
In his conversations, if they touched on
subjects which he felt deeply, came little
bursts of temper which subsided as quickly as
they arose and left no bad feeling behind
them.’
He
spent the night with the family and the two
young men sat up until 2 am talking and drinking
with Morris.
Ernest was apprenticed at the time to a
local architect and so he had an especial
interest in Morris’s artistic ventures.
The following year he wrote to Morris
after, ‘much hesitation for fear of
intrusion,’ asking for a letter of
introduction to a
London
firm. He
need not have worried as Morris wrote back by
return of post sending three.
As
a result Ernest Gimson found a good position and
later became arguably the best furniture maker
in the Arts and Crafts tradition. |
|
Wyggeston
Girls' School in Regent Road, now Regent College,
nearing completion in 1928. The building was
designed by Symington and Prince.
The school transferred to this site from its
original base in Humberstone Gate. |
|
|
| Before
he left Leicester, he pursued Clara Collet and despite being four
years her junior, asked her hand in marriage.
After a great deal of deliberation and
careful thought, Clara turned him down.
She decided that she did not love him and
although he would make an excellent choice of
husband in many ways she was not prepared to
compromise love.
‘It is much better to live an old maid
and get a little “honey” from the short real
friendships I can have with men for whom I
really care myself than to be bound for life to
a man just because he thinks he cares for me.’
In
any case, should she marry, she would have to
give up her career and although she was by this
time becoming dissatisfied with teaching, she
certainly did not plan to abandon her plans for
marriage. |
 |
|
The
following year in 1885, Clara decided to leave
teaching, return to London and embark upon further education. This she did although, ‘the whole school
[was] united in sorrow when she left and thirty
of Miss Clara Collet’s girls drove with her to
Longcliffe where they had tea’.
At
her final assembly she was unable to contain her
tears and was full of trepidation at leaving the
security of her work in
Leicester
especially as she was leaving
‘the pleasantest part of my life
behind.’
Clara need not have worried too much.
Despite a great deal of uncertainty for
the next few years, she became the first woman
to gain an MA in Political Economy and went on
to work with Lloyd George, Winston Churchill,
Ramsay MacDonald, Charles Booth, William
Beveridge and others, campaigning to improve
working conditions in the both the ‘sweated
trades’ and in the area of women’s work.
|
|
|
 |
The
school crest (derived from the earlier crests of
founder William Wyggeston and the
Wyggeston Boys' School). |
| The
Wyggeston Hospital Girls' School (and sometime
City of Leicester Boys' School) in Humberstone
Gate pictured here soon after its completion in
Clara's time in 1878. It is now the
headquarters of Age Concern Leicester. |
|
|
Clara
Collet 1860-1948: An Educated Working Woman
published by Woburn Press is also available.
This provides full biographical details
of Clara’s life with two chapters covering her
time as a schoolmistress in
Leicester
. It
includes an extensive bibliography of her work,
including several papers written during this
period. For
further information on other aspects of
Clara’s life see www.clara-collet.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|
