In the early twentieth century, teaching was a reliable, respectable profession for middle-class, educated young women. The 1919 Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act also made it easier for women to attend university and train as teachers. However, the act did not remove the marriage bar, meaning that women teachers were still expected to leave the profession if they married. This meant that women working as teachers had to live independently, supporting themselves financially.

Constance Geary 1904 – 1990

Very little is known about Constance’s education and early life, other than the fact that she graduated from London University with a BA in Geography (Second Class Honours) in 1924. When she visited India in 1934, her profession on her visa was listed as ‘teacher’, but she was not a registered teacher – possibly because she taught in private schools, where registration was not necessary. Between 1930 and 1936, Constance was a WPH tenant, living at 62 Ladbroke Grove.

Constance moved out of 62 Ladbroke Grove to make a dramatic move, leaving London to take up the post of Principal of the Lahore College for Women University (then in India, now in Pakistan). She remained in this job for 10 years, until the Partition of India. She was still listed as ‘college principal’ when travelling to Bombay in January 1947, but in December of that year (four months after Partition) she travelled back to the UK and her documents listed her occupation as ‘teacher’, previous residence ‘India’ and future residence ‘not certain’.

The year after her return to the UK, Constance was awarded a doctorate by London University for her thesis ‘Western Tibet: a Record of a Threatened Civilisation’. She was soon travelling the globe again, moving to Nigeria in 1948 to take up the post of Chief Woman Education Officer for Northern Nigeria, as part of a Colonial Office initiative to expand women’s education in the country. Using the vast experience she gained in Lahore, she oversaw the opening of four women’s training colleges for primary/middle school teachers, eight government girls’ boarding schools and the first government secondary school for girls in Northern Nigeria. Constance achieved this despite opposition from both local male community leaders and male British colonial officers.

By 1959 Constance had been appointed Professor of Education at University College, Ibadan, Nigeria - an internal college of London University that became Ibadan University on Nigeria’s independence in 1960. She occupied this post until December 1959, when she married Norman Stanley Alexander in Lagos, a fellow Professor at Ibadan. Following tradition, Constance stopped working after she married. By contrast, Norman’s career flourished and he was knighted for his services to education in 1966. Following Norman’s retirement in 1973, the couple returned to the UK to live in Redisham in Suffolk. Constance died there in March 1990.

Mary Cornish 1889 – 1964

Mary trained as a musician at the Royal Academy of Music, where she gained certificates in Piano, Sight Singing and Harmony in 1920. To secure a stable job, she then joined the RAM’s Teacher Training course and graduated the following year. However, she continued to show off her piano skills at regular concert performances. From 1927 to 1936, Mary was a WPH tenant, living at 14 Collingham Road.

After the outbreak of World War Two, Mary became a volunteer escort for the Children Overseas Reception Board, which arranged for children to be evacuated abroad. In 1940 she was responsible for escorting a group of girls to Canada on HMS City of Benares. On 18th September 1940, the City of Benares was sunk by a German U Boat and the ship was abandoned. Mary was ordered into Lifeboat 10 with her girls, but Mary went back below deck to try to find a missing girl. She was unsuccessful and, realising that her lifeboat and the other girls had gone, she was ordered on to Lifeboat 12 with six schoolboys, a Catholic priest, another male civilian and crew members. This lifeboat was mistakenly left behind and cast adrift, alone in the Atlantic Ocean. Mary was reported dead and Eileen, her sister, posted a notice in the local newspaper stating that she had died at sea.  

The lifeboat had food and water for seven days. Mary looked after the boys, massaging their arms and legs, singing songs and telling them stories. They were all suffering from hypothermia and sea rot (similar to trench foot). On the eighth day, they were spotted by a flying boat which signalled to HMS Anthony which rescued them. 

Mary was given a hero's welcome when they returned to England, but she was distraught to find that only two of her fifteen girls had survived. In all, seventy-seven of the ninety children on board had died. After this, there were no more children sent overseas and the incident was regarded as a war crime. The public glare was too much for Mary and, after a brief period in the Land Army, she had a breakdown. In 1941 she was awarded the British Empire Medal (now OBE).

In later life, Mary moved to Midhurst and became a piano teacher once more. She was a keen gardener and very fond of her two nieces who described her as lively and full of fun. She died in the King Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst on 19th December 1964.

Stella Fife, 1874 – 1947

Like Mary Cornish, Stella trained as a musician. In 1897, Stella began studying the violoncello under Mr W. E. Whitehouse, a professor at both the Royal College and Royal Academy of Music. Stella was awarded the distinction of Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music in the Royal Academy of Music Metropolitan Examinations in 1899. By 1903 Stella and her sister Eveline (a violinist) were both Associates of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM), an award given to former students who have made a significant contribution to the music profession.   

Both sisters also became successful music teachers, setting up their own music school - Berkshire Training College of Music – in 1897 Reading. The college promised ‘a First-rate Musical Training at moderate cost’. Two years later Stella and Eveline were appointed to the Music Department at Reading College (later Reading University). They both worked there until at least 1907, whilst also teaching privately across London, Oxford, Marlborough and Reading. Each year, Stella also organised a popular season of chamber concerts in Reading known as ‘Miss Fife’s Chamber Concerts’.

Alongside her musical pursuits, Stella was an active and passionate member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). She was arrested for suffragette activity on 21^st November 1910, under the fictitious name ‘Selina Fry’, but discharged. Between 1911 and 1913 Stella regularly donated money to the WSPU and arranged music for some of their Reading meetings. 

WPH gave Stella an affordable and secure home where she could live independently following the death of her parents in 1918. After a spell at York Street Chambers, Marylebone, (ran by the Ladies’ Residential Chambers Company to provide purpose-built accommodation for ‘educated working women’), she became one of the first five tenant-investors at the first WPH property, 65 Holland Park Avenue. Her tenancy (which you can see below) commenced on Christmas Day 1921. It is probable that the money to invest in WPH came from her family inheritance. Stella was a WPH tenant until 1929 and then lived in four other properties around Kensington until 1937. 

During the 1920s and 1930s, Stella remained an active and celebrated musician. She was an enthusiastic member of the Chamber Music Section of the Society for Women Musicians, winning their Cobbett Challenge Medal for string quartets in 1928 and regularly performing in their concerts. By 1939 she had moved to Worthing, West Sussex and, at the age of 65, was still listed on record as a ‘violoncellist’. During World War II she took part in charity concerts to help the war effort. She died shortly after the war, in Worthing in November 1947.