Mary Alice Douglas

Born in 1860 Mary Alice Douglas is best known as an educationalist and the ‘second founder’ and headmistress of Godolphin school for three decades. She was considered to be a ‘headmistress of genius’. Mary was also a suffragist who chaired several of the large women’s suffrage meetings held in Salisbury, where she was praised for her ‘clear and balanced statements’. 

Mary Alice Douglas was born at Salwarpe, Worcestershire, on 29 November, 1860, the eighth child of William Douglas (rector) and Frances Jane Douglas, in a large family with sixteen children. All of the children were born and grew up in the rectory (apart from one sister who died during childhood). She had a happy childhood and enjoyed her education in Salwarpe, which may have been influential in her own life as an educationalist

In 1883, she became a teacher, and then second mistress, at in Worcester High School (later known as the Alice Ottley School) in 1883, and undertook further training in Westfield College in 1884. She very much enjoyed this time, and wrote:

 “I went to college very hungry for the feast of lectures spread out before me, and I tried at first to partake of ever so many things at once, but some I found had to be dropped. I was only there for little more than one year, and then returned home and was appointed to a post on the regular staff of the Worcester High School. There I remained for four and a half years till, in November 1889, I was appointed to be Head Mistress of the Godolphin School. My sister Lucy and I had been somewhat separated for a few years, but now we rejoined to work together in close companionship at Godolphin” (The Godolphin Book, 1890-1914).