YSJ Women – an archive display for International Women’s Day, 8th March 2022

I first started thinking about doing a display on Women at YSJ when the Alumni Office asked for some information about the earliest women students at York St John for a post on their own blog. On doing some research, I discovered that although there were female students dating back to 1846, they were originally treated as second-class citizens compared to the male students. As International Women’s Day was approaching with the theme of ‘Break the Bias’, I decided it would be interesting to explore the lives of women students at the college through time, looking at the bias they experienced and how it changed over the years. I had also recently been doing some cataloguing of donations made to the archive by former female students at what was then the Ripon Training College, and had come across some really interesting items. The display will be available to view on the ground floor of Fountains Learning Centre from 8th-18th March. In this blog post, I’ll explore some of the resources featured in the display and discuss the lives and experiences of female students through the years.

The early years

When the York Diocesan Training College (as YSJ was originally known) first started educating student teachers in the 1840s, it was common for (mostly unmarried) women to become schoolteachers. However, they were paid less than men for the same work and some believed there was little point in training women as teachers as most would leave to get married within a short time. The first female students were treated as an afterthought by the college. They were housed in accommodations in Monkgate that had been considered unsuitable for the male students due to their poor state, and unlike the men, were expected to do all their own cooking and cleaning. They had very little personal freedom – they had a strict schedule for their day, and had to get permission from the mistress to post a letter to their families or to go into York. The pages below set out the strict rules the students had to follow, which includes an expectation to dress plainly, with no ‘ringlets, flowers, veils, flounces or ornaments’.

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Their accommodations improved somewhat when the women’s college was moved to a separate site in Ripon in 1862, with the male students by now based at Lord Mayor’s Walk. However, it was 1874 before the college stopped expecting female students to do all their own cleaning.

Subjects studied

Students at the separate York and Ripon Training Colleges, whether male or female, trained as teachers, but at first there were key differences between the subjects they studied. In the early years of the college, women studied less maths, no Latin, and were additionally taught Domestic Economy and Sewing. There was also a strong religious element to their activities, as can be seen in the timetable below.

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From the 1890s, the range of subjects studied by the women students expanded, with more opportunity to study sciences, but needlework remained an important subject. Our archive contains examples of sewing samples produced by the women students as evidence of their needlework and clothcraft skills.

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Religious and political views

The York and Ripon training colleges were established by the Church of England to educate future teachers and most students were from an Anglican background. These three religious texts belonged to Mabel Moseley, a student in the 1890s, with some of the texts appearing to be gifts given to her or family members to mark religious occasions or ceremonies. All three books are very small, with the smallest, Seaweeds, containing beautiful illustrations alongside Biblical verses.

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It wasn’t until 1907 that regulations forced Church Colleges to admit nonconformists (ie. Protestants who were not Church of England), although by that point Ripon and York were already doing so. Many former students participated in missionary work overseas and wrote about this in the college magazines – the colonial implications of this have been explored by our student researcher Amy McCarthy in her blog post. However, some students took quite different sorts of journeys overseas. In this entry from a 1932 issue of the magazine, a student provides a surprisingly open-minded account of her visit to Soviet Russia.

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By the 1970s, the student experience had changed considerably, with both colleges now co-educational, and eventually becoming the combined College of Ripon and York St John in 1975. The image below, from a 1973 issue of the Ripon magazine, describes the election of a female President of the Students’ Union, Deborah Clark, and notes that ‘it is interesting and encouraging to see that the student body is not automatically electing a man President’. Of course, to us even the fact that they remark on this is evidence of how much things have changed in the last fifty years. This magazine also talks about students’ work raising money for charity, although this is now shorn of religious associations.

College life and student societies

In 1890 a new principal, George Garrod, took over the running of Ripon Training College. As well as expanding the subjects of study available to the female students, he relaxed a lot of the strict rules students were subject to and introduced more college societies, sports and entertainments, giving students more opportunities to enjoy themselves. He founded the Association of Old Students and also set up the college magazine. In this entry from an 1894 issue of the magazine, a student describes a picnic at Brimham Rocks, where some members of the group climbed on the rocks while others got lost in a wood and had to fend off an ‘irate cow and unseen snakes’.

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With the increased freedoms available to them, students became more involved in leisure pursuits, and eventually began to put on regular dramatic productions. Two separate student photo albums show students performing plays in full costume, the first from 1910 and the second from 1928.

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Many of the students developed close friendships while at the college and remained in touch after they left to go on to roles in teaching. It was common for students to keep autograph albums which their friends would contribute inscriptions to through their time at the college, including snippets of poetry and beautiful drawings and paintings. The image below is from the autograph album of Eliza Smith, a student from 1880-1882, showing her dedication at the front of the album and a pen and ink drawing of Ripon Cathedral.

Regular reunions were held the College, allowing former and current students to mingle. This photo album shows several images of four female friends attending the 1926 reunion (left) and enjoying themselves in their first year of college (right). The album is inscribed “To Edna, With Very Best Love from Marion, Ellen and May, July 1928”.

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Conclusion – the changing experience of YSJ Women

Although early female students at YSJ experienced worse conditions and facilities due to their gender, students only a few decades later enjoyed much greater freedoms and opportunities. From the 1890s, learning for interest was prized, the range of subjects studied increased, and students were able to enjoy leisure pursuits in their free time. The instruction at the college remained religious in nature, but students still had the opportunity to exercise freedom of thought. Many remembered their studies fondly and would form friendships that would last beyond their time at the college. Stop by our display on the ground floor of Fountains Learning Centre, 8th-18th March, to see the original archival resources.

Sources consulted

McGregor, G. (2009) Life More Abundant: York St John University 1841-2008. York: Ebor Press.

The Diocesan Training Institution for School Mistresses (no date), GB 1865 HA/YDS/TS/3/39, York St John University Historical Archives, York.

Richardson, C. (1986) The Evolution of a Training College for Schoolmistresses in the Diocese of Ripon and York to 1862. M.Ed Thesis, University of Manchester.