Elizabeth Burgwin
Elizabeth Burgwin | |
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| Born | 3 September 1850  Occold |
| Died | 1 February 1940 (aged 89) London |
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Elizabeth Burgwin born Elizabeth Canham OBE (1850–1940) was a headteacher in London who founded the largest charity supplying free school meals in London. She took an interest in the care of children with learning disabilities.
Life
Burgwin was born in 1850 to Miriam and Samuel Canham. Her father was an a labourer on a farm. She was educated in London at Whitelands Training College's school until in 1864 she began a five-year apprenticeship in Chelsea at St Luke's Parochial Girls' School. In 1870 she married Thomas William Burgwin who was a butcher and they had their only child.[1]
She passed the exam and gained her teacher's certificate while teaching for two years in West Ham. At the start of 1874 she became the head of a temporary school until she and the staff moved to the newly constructed Orange Street Girl's School in Southwark. She started to organise a drink and some bread for the malnourished children and this evolved into a meal during the winter which was funded by a small group.[1]
Burgwin approached George Robert Sims who was a successful writer and journalist for The Referee. Together they created the Referee Children's Free Breakfast and Dinner Fund with Burgwin as treasurer. She persuaded Sims to write an annual appeal in The Referee to appeal for funds.[1] The money paid for breakfasts of porridge and jam and the midday meal was described as "suet pudding and potatoes steeped in luscious gravy".[2] The fund they created became the largest charity supplying free school meals in London by 1900.[1]
Burgwin went to study the care of children with learning disabilities in France, Denmark and Germany and in October 1891 the London School Board appointed her as the superintendent of schools for special instruction. In 1897 1,300 children were being educated in classes under her management.[1]
She was a supporter of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage serving on their executive committee. At a teachers' conference she opposed a motion in support of women's suffrage. She died in 1940.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Horn, Pamela (2004-09-23). Burgwin [née Canham], Elizabeth Miriam (1850–1940), educationist. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/51776.
- ^ Lee, Imogen. "'A Neighbourhood of this Sort.' How Southwark Shaped Ideas of Child and School: Orange Street Elementary 1870-1904 (Metropolitan History Seminar, IHR, 2012)".
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