Frances Mary Buss and her work for educationRidley, Annie E.
History
Frances Mary Buss and her work for education
Ridley, Annie E.
Buss, Frances Mary, 1827-1894
It was not till 1877 that Mrs. Grey succeeded in opening the college
which now bears her name, up to which she and Miss Shirreff had been
working in the Teachers’ Training and Registration Society, one of the
offshoots of the Women’s Education Union.
For details of this work I am indebted to Miss Shirreff, and also to
Miss Agnes J. Ward, one of the first principals of the college.
The council, in addition to Mrs. Grey and Miss Shirreff, consisted of
Miss Chessar, Dr. E. A. Abbott, Mr. J. H. Rigg, Mr. R. N. Shore, Mr. C.
H. Lake, and Mr. Douglas Galton. The articles of association were
drafted by Mr. William Shaen, who, till his death, in 1886, was a
generous and true friend to the college.
Miss Louisa Brough became secretary, under Mrs. Grey, as organizing
secretary. Unhappily, after working for a year or so, Mrs. Grey’s health
broke down, and she was ordered abroad. It was then that Miss Buss came
to the front, though she had been quietly helpful from the beginning.
Some letters to her from Rome show Mrs. Grey’s estimate of this help—
“23, Piazza de Spagna, Roma,
“Feb. 11, 1879.
“It is really too good of you, in the midst of your hard-worked
life, to make time for writing me such a charming long letter as
I received a few days ago.... We have left the hotel, and have
very sunny rooms just at the foot of the great stairs. How I
wish you were over the way, where I used to pick you up two
years ago.
“Except from yourself, we hear hardly anything from the college.
Your hopeful report is a great joy to us, because you know the
difficulties so well that you will never be over sanguine. How
kind it is of you and Miss Chessar to work for it as you do, and
Dr. Abbott deserves more thanks than I can express. I would like
to write to him only I feel it would be imposing on him a letter
to write, and that would be no kindness. Will you tell him this
when you meet, and something of what we both feel about his
generous gift of time and thought to the institution that we
have cared for so earnestly and are driven to forsake.... We
must, as you say, make our scheme as we go along, and large
numbers would be an embarrassment. As to funds, you make no
complaint, and that is comforting.... Once the college is in
settled good work, and the Cambridge scheme is published, I
cannot doubt that many will be found to help.”
Mrs. Grey was never strong enough to return to the work so near her
heart, and her great comfort was in the thought that with Miss Buss’
oversight it must go on successfully. On the occasion of a presentation
to Mrs. Grey of a beautiful casket, with an address from the Girls’
Public Day-school Company, Miss Shirreff writes thus to Miss Buss—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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