Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemGood and mad women (teachers): the case of Grace Neven( 1993)This thesis is a study of a nineteenth - century teacher, Martha G. Neven, whose life was spent in the marginal role of temporary teacher in the Victorian Education Department until she was deemed by the state to be insane and admitted to Kew Asylum. Martha, or Grace as she was also known, taught at a time of transition in the Education Department as it became a public service department. Teaching, one hospitable to women teachers, including married women, became increasingly classified as a career to attract more male staff. The Public Service Act of 1889 and the retrenchment measures of the 1890s prohibited married women, with some exceptions, from tenured employment in the Department. In 1891 Grace made a forced marriage to a man who very shortly afterwards was admitted to an asylum: When the secret marriage came to the attention of the Department she was forced to resign. The Education Department's Special Case File describes this incident, the virginity test she was required to take to prove her innocence, the Department's support for her divorce and her reinstatement as teacher. Further research showed that Grace's second marriage also failed, leaving her, a deserted wife, to earn her living as a temporary teacher. This study explores what it is possible to "know" of Grace as the "good and mad" woman of the nineteenth - century records. It argues that there is another representation of Grace's life which acknowledges her achievements and her strategies for survival for thirty - seven years in a Department which exploited its married women temporary teachers.