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Monday 17 August 2009

Ackworth Scholars and Teachers


Here you can see Isabella Harris, Jun.,who became the recognised authority in reading at Ackworth School until she departed in 1818. Lindley Murray who wrote the Grammar for Ackworth School, considered her reading to have 'masterly rendering of the the author's meaning, and delicacy of intonation and emphasis.' She impressed the girls with her gentleness and graceful life. She is just one of the teachers who exercised a great influence over the girls at Ackworth School and you can now read more about her and other teachers who were at Ackworth School between 1779-1879 in a downloadable PDF.


Since August 2006 I have been working on my labour of love - creating a fully searchable list of the 9,486 scholars who were at Ackworth in the first 100 sampler rich years(1779-1879). A book of scholars exists, as some of you may know, and it is lovely and precious (a copy costs around $100). However, it has its shortcomings for researchers: it is not easy to reference; it is difficult to bring families together; you cannot search by place names where the scholars came from; you cannot see easily how long any scholar remained in school; it is difficult to see the girls for the boys - and it is not totally accurate. Poor Benjamina Rickman who stitched some lovely samplers is recorded in the original as Benjamin! This list of scholars is in the form of 2 Excel Spreadsheets, one partitioned for the girls only in alphabetic surname order and initials highlighted, so you can quickly find all those with the same surname, all those coming from a certain place, and see if you can identify any initials on the samplers you have seen. It is now a great information and research resource. The price to download the PDF of Teachers and the 2 Excel spreadsheet of Scholars combined is $30.
Click here for more information.

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