Elizabeth Mayo 1793 – 1865
Educational reformer and evangelical writer.
18 June 1793 – 1 September 1865
Some key Achievements and Interests
1822 Joined her brother Charles Mayo at the evangelical school he had set up which applied Pestalozzi principles to elementary education. She worked at this school in Epsom and then in Cheam when Charles moved there in 1826, staying until 1834 when she moved to London. Pestalozzi methods encouraged the drawing out of information from children particularly through engaging in the physical world and Elizabeth refined these to conform to her beliefs and practical experience. She played a major part in the success of the schools.
1830 & 1830 Published Lessons on Objects, developed for the teaching of children between the ages of six and eight at Cheam, and Lessons on Shells for children aged eight to ten. These broke new ground in the way they demonstrated to infant teachers how they could ‘teach’ infants. She developed Pestalozzi methods to use real objects.
1842 First woman in England to be employed in teacher training at the Home and Colonial School Society which had been founded in 1836 in Southampton Street and moved to Gray’s Inn Road in 1838. Here she developed her teaching through object lessons.
Her influence at the Home and Colonial School Society is noted by Mr E Coghlan ‘she exercised a general supervision over everything that was taught, wrote model sketches and lessons on many subjects, and sometimes in the earlier of these years [1843-1855] gave lessons to show how certain subjects ought to be handled in class teaching.’ A genealogical account of the Mayo and Elton families of the counties of Wilts and Hereford; with an appendix, containing genealogies, for the most part not hitherto published, of certain families allied by marriage to the family of Mayo: : Mayo, Charles Herbert, 1845-1929 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive pp79,80
The success of these object lessons resulted in object lessons being incorporated in schools throughout the country. She helped develop awareness of the skills needed to teach very young children and the importance of appropriate teacher training and a recognition of the importance of infant education.
1848, 1849 Edited the Home and Colonial School Society’s Quarterly Educational Magazine and Record.
Following her death, a tablet to her memory was erected in a school-room in the Home and Colonial Society’s buildings, Gray’s Inn Road inscribed:
The Committee of the Home and Colonial School Society erect this tablet to commemorate the inestimable services of Miss Elizabeth Mayo, in having adapted to the English mind and character the principles of Pestalozzi leavened with evangelical truth. She devoted herself to the direction of the schools and the training of the students of this institution and endeared herself to all by her hearty sympathy, wise counsel, and friendly aid. Miss Mayo’s interest in this society continued during 30 years, until her death in 1865, the age of 72. Her last labour of love was the preparation of an edition of ‘Religious Instruction for the Young’, and her bequest of £500 has led to the erection for the education of a Middle Classes of this structure, to be called The Mayo School-room.’
Issues
Was forced to relinquish her editorial post at the Home and Colonial School Society due to poor health.
The significance of her work was overshadowed by that of her brother who worked in the same field as her.
Connection to Bloomsbury
The Home and Colonial School Society in Grays Inn Road.
Women in her Network
Writing
1830 Lessons on Objects (which reached its 16th edition by 1859).
1832 Lessons on Shells.
1837 Practical remarks on infant education (with Charles Mayo).
1838 Model Lessons for infant school teachers and nursery governesses.
1838 Selection of Hymns and Poetry for the use of Infant schools and Nurseries.
1840/50 Model Lessons for Infant Schools.
1849 Lessons on Religious Instruction.
Further Reading
Brown, J.A. British Pestalozzianism in the Nineteenth Century: Pestalozzi and his Influence on British Education. Cardiff: University of Wales, 1986. null (bangor.ac.uk) (see for an analysis of Elizabeth Mayo’s methods.)
Mayo, Charles Herbert A Genealogical account of the Mayo and Elton families of the counties of Wilts and Hereford; with an appendis, containing genealogies, for the most part not hitherto published, of certain families allied by marriage to the family of Mayo, 1882 pp79-81. A genealogical account of the Mayo and Elton families of the counties of Wilts and Hereford; with an appendix, containing genealogies, for the most part not hitherto published, of certain families allied by marriage to the family of Mayo: : Mayo, Charles Herbert, 1845-1929 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Shepherd, J. Mayo, Elizabeth (1793-1865), educational reformer and evangelical writer. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
Schultz, L. Pestalozzi’s Mark on Nineteenth-Century Composition Instructions: Ideas Not in Words, but in Things. Oxfordshire: Rhetoric Review, 1995.