Sewing Seams of Stories: Becoming a teacher during the First World War

Abstract

In this article the author shares a partial biography of Elizabeth Evans, who became a domestic science teacher in Britain during the First World War. This story begins with a small collection of artefacts—professional letters and personal photographs—which infuse our understanding of teaching and learning and Elizabeth’s everyday life nearly a century ago. This inquiry is an entry point to an interpretive process that explores questions of teaching during war and the interrelationships that defined Elizabeth’s lived experiences.

Notes

¹ I would like to extend my special thanks to Dr Peter Cunningham for his generous support and guidance in this process. I greatly appreciate the helpful comments of reviewers, and the efforts of key individuals who have made this article possible: Dr Allan Hackett, Jim Rawsthorn and John Symington.

² Fox, G., and J. Geichman. “Creating research questions from strategies and perspectives of contemporary art.” Curriculum Inquiry 31, no. 1 (2001): 40.

³ Lawn, M., and G. Grace, eds. Teachers: The Culture and Politics of Work. London: Falmer Press, 1987: viii.

⁴ Ordnance Survey map of Wallasey and suburbs Liscard and Seacombe, 1920. Grid reference at centre—SJ 305 925 GB Grid. Reproduced from 1920 Ordnance Survey map with the kind permission of the Ordnance Survey.

⁵ The National Archives. Available from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline (accessed 5 January 2006). Military documents and campaign medal searches did not produce a confirmed match for Robert Evans.

⁶ Roberts, M. “Turn of the Century Girls’ Sewing.” In The Heritage Shoppe Journal of Needlework 1, no. 1 (2004): 14. Available from http://journal.heritageshoppe.com/Jan2004/girlssewing1.html (accessed 5 January 2006).

⁷ Dr Allan Hackett’s web page: http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/olfahack/calder.htm (accessed 6 June 2004).

⁸ Personal communication on 30 January 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

⁹ Personal communication on 26 January 2006 with J. Symington, Assistant Archivist, Modern Records Centre, University Library, University of Warwick. The Modern Records collection is available from http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/holdings/sumguide/ (accessed 14 January 2006).

¹⁰ Tosh, J. The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History. 3rd ed. London: Longman, 2000: 119—22.

¹¹ VanWynsberghe, R. “The Unfinished Story: Narratively Analyzing Collective Action Frames in Social Movements.” Qualitative Inquiry 7, no. 6 (2001): 733.

¹² Creswell, J. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications, 1998: 47.

¹³ Ibid., 51.

¹⁴ Ibid., 174.

¹⁵ Goodson, I. Studying Teacher’s Lives. New York: Teachers College Press, 1992: 59.

¹⁶ Reinharz, S. Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992: 126.

¹⁷ Ibid., 226.

¹⁸ Ibid., 127.

¹⁹ Goodson, I., and U. Numan. “Teachers’ Life Worlds, Agency and Policy Contexts.” Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice 8, nos 3/4 (2002): 269.

²⁵ Gough, N., “Intertextual Turns in Curriculum Inquiry”, 17.

²⁰ Gough, N. “Intertextual Turns in Curriculum Inquiry: Fictions, Diffractions and Deconstructions.” Ph.D. diss., Deakin University, 2003. Gough quoting Knoespel, 1991, page 34.

²¹ Prosser, J. Image‐Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers. London: Falmer Press, 1998.

²² Conle, C. “An Anatomy of Narrative Curricula.” Educational Researcher 32, no. 3 (2003): 5.

²³ Tosh, J., The Pursuit of History, 43.

²⁴ Ibid., 183.

²⁶ White, H. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth‐Century Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

²⁷ Burke, P. “History of Events and the Revival of Narrative.” In New Perspectives on Historical Writing, edited by P. Burke. Cambridge: Polity, 1991: 24.

²⁸ Tosh, J., The Pursuit of History, 92–99.

²⁹ Conle, C. “An Anatomy of Narrative Curricula”, 6.

³⁰ Taylor, E. “Using Still Photography in Making Meaning of Adult Educators’ Teaching Beliefs.” Studies in the Education of Adults 34, no. 2 (2002): 123.

³¹ Mitchell, C., and S. Weber. “Picture This! Class Line‐Ups, Vernacular Portraits and Lasting Impressions of School.” In Image‐Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers, edited by J. Prosser. London: Falmer Press, 1998: 198.

³² Ibid., 210.

³³ Personal communication on 1 February 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

³⁴ Cole, A., and J. Knowles. “Qualities of Inquiry: Process, Form, and Goodness.” In The Art of Writing Inquiry, edited by L. Neilsen, A. Cole, and J. Knowles. Halifax: Backalong Press, 2001: 215.

³⁵ Ibid., 212.

³⁶ Personal communication on 28 June 2004 with J. Rawsthorn, Senior Information Officer, John Moores University.

³⁷ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary: The Domestic Subjects Teacher in England, 1870–1914.” Women’s History Review 3, no. 1 (1994): 89.

³⁸ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery: Gender, Status, and Domestic Subjects, 1890–1930.” Gender and Education 10, no. 2 (1998); Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary.”

³⁹ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 89.

⁴⁰ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”; Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”.

⁴¹ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 122.

⁴² Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 118; Sharp, P., and J. Dunford. The Education System in England and Wales. London: Longman Group, 1990: 15; Horn, P. “Ministry of Labour Female Training Programmes between the Wars: 1919–39.” In History of Education 31, no. 1 (2002).

⁴³ Trouve‐Finding, S. “Teaching as a Woman’s Job: The Impact of the Admission of Women to Elementary Teaching in England and France in the Late Nineteenth Century and Early Twentieth Century.” In History of Education 34, no. 5 (2005): 486, 489.

⁴⁴ Gordon, P., R. Aldrich, and D. Dean. Education and Policy in England in the Twentieth Century. London: Woburn Press, 1991: 128; Turnbull, A. “Learning Her Womanly Work: The Elementary School Curriculum, 1870–1914.” In Lessons for Life: The Schooling of Girls and Women, 1850–1950, edited by F. Hunt. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987.

⁴⁵ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 82.

⁴⁶ Bird, E. “Curricular Innovations in Women’s Adult Education”, 6.

⁴⁷ Spencer, S. “Advice and Ambition in a Girls’ Public Day School: The Case of Sutton High School, 1884–1924.” In Women’s History Review 9, no. 1 (2000): 76–77.

⁴⁸ Gordon, P., R. Aldrich, and D. Dean. Education and Policy in England, 124; Dyhouse, C. “Good Wives and Little Mothers: Social Anxieties and the Schoolgirl’s Curriculum, 1890–1920.” In Oxford Review of Education 3, no. 1 (1977).

⁴⁹ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 126.

⁵⁰ St John, D. “Educate or Domesticate? Early Twentieth Century Pressures on Older Girls in Elementary School.” In Women’s History Review 3, no. 2 (1994): 194.

⁵¹ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 84.

⁵² Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”; Bird, E. “Curricular Innovations in Women’s Adult Education, 1865–1900. In Education‐line (reproduced from 1985 Conference Proceedings, pp. 42–60, © SCUTREA 1997). Available from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002647.htm (accessed 5 January 2006).

⁵³ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 126.

⁵⁴ Personal communication on 30 January 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

⁵⁶ Paterson, F. “Teaching Identities: Representing Historical Experience.” Journal of Historical Sociology 4, no. 4 (1991): 435.

⁵⁵ Personal communication on 30 January 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

⁵⁷ Lawn, M. Servants of the State. London: Falmer Press, 1988: 8, 9.

⁵⁸ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 83–84, 86–87.

⁵⁹ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 82–83.

⁶⁰ Spencer, S. “Advice and Ambition in a Girls’ Public Day School”, 84, 86.

⁶¹ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 122; Trouve‐Finding, S. “Teaching as a Woman’s Job”; Bird, E. “Curricular Innovations in Women’s Adult Education”.

⁶² Gordon, P., R. Aldrich, and D. Dean. Education and Policy in England, 124.

⁶³ Trouve‐Finding, S. “Teaching as a Woman’s Job”, 484.

⁶⁴ Lawrence, D.H. The Rainbow. New York: Random House, 1915/1943: 369.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 369.

⁶⁶ Lawrence, D.H. Women in Love. Great Britain: Richard Clay, 1920/1987: 84.

⁶⁷ Given Robert’s position in this photograph (back row, second from the right), I believe this image to be the Evans family, and based on census data, I identified immediate family members.

⁶⁸ The identity of Elizabeth and Ethel is not textually confirmed on the photograph.

⁶⁹ As an interpretive narrative of Elizabeth’s life story, the role of a VAD sets the stage for contextualizing this time in history.

⁷⁰ Ouditt, S. Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War. London: Routledge, 1994: 18, 19.

⁷⁵ Grayzel, S. Women and the First World War. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2002: 117.

⁷¹ Gordon, P., R. Aldrich, and D. Dean. Education and Policy in England, 35.

⁷² Lawn, M. Servants of the State. London, 1988: 62.

⁷³ Ibid., 59.

⁷⁴ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 81.

⁷⁶ Imperial War Museum, “Information Sheet No. 40: Voluntary Aid Detachments in the First World War.” Compiled by M. Wilkinson and A. Duffield, November 1991. Available from http://www.iwm.org.uk/upload/pdf/Info40.pdf (accessed 5 January 2006).

⁷⁷ Bowser, T. Britain’s Civilian Volunteers, New York: Moffat, Yard & Company, 1917: p. 17.

⁷⁸ Ibid., p. 21.

⁷⁹ Ouditt, S. Fighting Forces, Writing Women, 15.

⁸⁰ British Red Cross, “VADs and Personal Records.” Available from http://www.redcross.org.uk/standard.asp?id=3423 (accessed 5 January 2006).

⁸¹ Bowser, T. Britain’s Civilian Volunteers, 67, 68.

⁸² Ibid., 155.

⁸³ Ibid., 53.

⁸⁴ Ibid., 53.

⁸⁵ Grayzel, S. Women and the First World War, 38, 40; Ouditt, S. Fighting Forces, Writing Women, 26.

⁸⁶ Bowser, T. Britain’s Civilian Volunteers, 12.

⁸⁷ Bowser, T. Britain’s Civilian Volunteers, 72.

⁸⁸ Imperial War Museum, “Information Sheet No. 40”. VADs were eligible for a number of awards, for example, after 1000 hours of unpaid service VADs were awarded the British Red Cross Service medal. The original card index detailing service with the VADs between 1914 and 1919 is largely intact (an estimated 80–90%).

⁸⁹ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 96. In reference to Domestic Subjects teachers.

⁹⁰ Corrigan, G. Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain in the First World War. London: Cassell, 2003: 43.

⁹¹ Personal communication on 25 January 2006 with J. Symington, Assistant Archivist, Modern Records Centre, University Library, University of Warwick; Manthorpe, C. “Science or Domestic Science? The Struggle to Define an Appropriate Science Education for Girls in Early Twentieth‐Century England.” In History of Education 15, no. 3 (1986): 203. The ATDS originated from a technical sub‐committee of the National Union of Women Workers in 1897, and in 1909 the name of the Association of Teachers of Domestic Science was changed to the Association of Teachers of Domestic Subjects. In 1962 the association reverted to the original title and finally, in 1983, it became the present‐day National Association of Teachers of Home Economics Limited.

⁹² Sadler, M. Continuation Schools in England and Elsewhere: Their Place in the Educational System of an Industrial and Commercial State. 2nd ed. Manchester: University Press, 1908: 450–51.

⁹³ Ibid.

⁹⁴ Scott, M. The History of F.L. Calder College of Domestic Science 1875–1965. Liverpool: F.L. Calder College, 1967, 25–26.

⁹⁵ See Dr Allan Hackett’s website.

⁹⁶ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”; Dyhouse, C. “Good Wives and Little Mothers”.

⁹⁷ Scott, M. The History of F.L. Calder, 27.

⁹⁸ Bird, E. “Curricular Innovations in Women’s Adult Education”, 1.

⁹⁹ Grayzel, S. Women and the First World War, 14, 15.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., 49.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., 49.

¹⁰² Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 128; St. John, D. “Educate or Domesticate?”

¹⁰³ Horn, P. “Ministry of Labour Female Training Programmes”, 71.

¹⁰⁴ Bird, E. “Curricular Innovations in Women’s Adult Education”, 10; Dyhouse, C. “Good Wives and Little Mothers”, 22; Manthorpe, C. “Science or Domestic Science?” 196.

¹⁰⁵ According to the National Archives, there is only a 40% chance of finding service records of a past soldier due to records being destroyed by fire in the Second World War: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=18&j=1 (accessed 5 January 2006).

¹⁰⁶ Oatts, L. I Serve: Regimental History of the 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales’s Dragoon Guards). Chester: The Regiment, 1966.

¹¹¹ Corrigan, G. Mud, Blood and Poppycock, 146–47.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., 196.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid., 212.

¹⁰⁹ The Long Long Trail. “The 3rd Cavalry Division.” Available from: http://www.1914‐1918.net/CAVALRY/3cavdiv.htm (accessed 5 January 2006); Ibid., “Dragoon Guards.” Available from: http://www.1914‐1918.net/CAVALRY/dragoonguards.htm (accessed 5 January 2006).

¹¹⁰ Chappell, M. British Cavalry Equipments 1800–1941. London: Osprey Publishing, 1983: 17.

¹¹² Ex‐Private X. War is War. London: Victor Gollancz, 1930: 5.

¹¹⁵ Ex‐Private X. War is War, 32–34.

¹¹³ Ibid., 64.

¹¹⁴ Corrigan, G. Mud, Blood and Poppycock; Hitchcock, F. Stand To: A Diary of the Trenches, 1915–1918. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1937: 83; Williamson, H. A Soldier’s Diary of the Great War. London: Faber & Gwyer, 1929: 60.

¹¹⁶ Williamson, H. A Soldier’s Diary of the Great War, 58.

¹¹⁷ Ibid., 67.

¹¹⁸ Ibid., 78.

¹¹⁹ Ibid., 79–80.

¹²⁰ Gilbert, F. The End of the European Era, 1890 to the Present. 3rd ed. London: W.W. Norton, 1970: 130.

¹²¹ Ibid., 132.

¹²² Schama, S. Landscapes and Memory. New York: Vintage Books, 1996: 64, 212.

¹²³ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 122.

¹²⁴ Ibid., 127.

¹²⁸ Coleman, F. With Cavalry in 1915. Toronto: William Briggs, 1916: 139.

¹²⁵ Bowser, T. Britain’s Civilian Volunteers, 40, 60. Men worked in town all week and provided relief to regular (male) VADs on Sundays; women worked in hospitals before and after the work day, sometimes starting as early as 5 a.m. and then working well into the evening.

¹²⁶ The Long Long Trail. “British Order of Battle.” Available from: http://www.1914‐1918.net/bat10.htm (accessed 5 January 2006).

¹²⁷ Oatts, L. I serve: Regimental History. Chester: The Regiment, 1966: 215.

¹³¹ Ibid., 233.

¹²⁹ Ibid., 183.

¹³⁰ Ibid., 190–91.

¹³² Ibid., 241.

¹³³ Ibid., 246.

¹³⁴ Oatts, L. I serve: Regimental History, 215.

¹³⁵ Coleman, F. With Cavalry in 1915, 250.

¹³⁶ Oatts, L. I serve: Regimental History, 216.

¹³⁷ Coleman, F. With Cavalry in 1915, 293.

¹³⁸ Oatts, L. I serve: Regimental History, 218.

¹³⁹ Bowser, T. Britain’s Civilian Volunteers, 16.

¹⁴⁰ Ibid., 33–34, 39, 71.

¹⁴¹ Roberts, M. “Turn of the Century Girls’ Sewing”, 15, 14, 16.

¹⁴² Ibid., 17.

¹⁴³ Scott, M. The History of F.L. Calder.

¹⁴⁴ Ibid., 40–43.

¹⁴⁵ Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 82.

¹⁴⁶ Personal communication on 30 March 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

¹⁴⁷ Bird, E. “High Class Cookery”, 118.

¹⁴⁸ Manthorpe, C. “Science or Domestic Science?” 200; Turnbull, A. “Learning Her Womanly Work”.

¹⁴⁹ Manthorpe, C. “Science or Domestic Science?” 199.

¹⁵⁰ Ibid., 89–96.

¹⁵¹ Personal communication on 30 January 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

¹⁵² Turnbull, A. “An Isolated Missionary”, 90.

¹⁵³ Paterson, F. “Teaching Identities”, 436.

¹⁵⁵ Ex‐Private X. War is War, 81.

¹⁵⁶ Ibid., 108.

¹⁵⁷ Ibid., 67.

¹⁵⁴ Oatts, L. I serve: Regimental History, 221–25.

¹⁵⁸ Hibberd, D. The First World War. London: Macmillan Education, 1990: 101.

¹⁵⁹ Booth, A. Postcards from the Trenches: Negotiating the Space between Modernism and the First World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996: 27.

¹⁶⁰ Ibid., 33.

¹⁶¹ Harris, J. Private Lives, Public Spirit: A Social History of Britain, 1870–1914. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993: 251–52.

¹⁶² Oatts, L. I serve: Regimental History. Chester: The Regiment, 1966: 226–28. Oatts describes action in which 3rd Dragoons were involved, November 1917–March 1918.

¹⁶³ The Long Long Trail. “British Order of Battle.” Available from http://www.1914‐1918.net/bat26.htm (accessed 5 January 2006).

¹⁶⁴ Mitchell, C., and S. Weber. “Picture This!”, 199.

¹⁶⁵ Personal communication on 30 January 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

¹⁶⁶ Lawn, M. Servants of the State, 145.

¹⁶⁷ Personal communication on 30 January 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

¹⁶⁸ Ibid., 61.

¹⁶⁹ ATDS yearbooks held by the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick end in 1943. Elizabeth is mentioned in every yearbook in this collection.

¹⁷¹ Ibid.

¹⁷⁰ Personal communication on 30 January 2006 with Weatherhead High School for Girls.

¹⁷² Day, C., A. Fernandez, R. Hauge, and J. Moller. The Life and Work of Teachers: International Perspectives in Changing Times. London: Falmer Press, 2000: 1.

¹⁷⁸ Ibid., 275. Casey (1992) quoted in Goodson and Numan.

¹⁷³ Conle, C. “Thesis as Narrative or What is the Inquiry in Narrative Inquiry?” Curriculum Inquiry 30, no. 2 (2000): 199.

¹⁷⁴ Van Manen, M. Researching Lived Experience. University of Ontario: Althouse Press, 1997: 71, 72.

¹⁷⁵ Ibid., 62.

¹⁷⁶ Warren, D. “Looking for a Teacher, Finding her Workplace.” Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 19, no. 2 (2004): 150, 151, 168.

¹⁷⁷ Goodson, I., and U. Numan. “Teachers’ Life Worlds”, 269, 270.

¹⁷⁹ Ibid., 274.