Dame Muriel Diana Reader Harris (11 October 1912,

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

– 7 October 1996,

Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

) was an English educator, school principal and public figure.Caroline M. K. Bowden: Harris, Dame (Muriel) Diana Reader (1912–1996). In: ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', online ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2004)
Retrieved 6 September 2010.
/ref> She was a keen advocate of women's ordination in the Church of England.

Early life

Muriel Diana, the elder child of Montgomery Reader Harris (born 1887) and his wife, Frances Mabel (née Wilmot Wilkinson), returned to England at the age of two, but lost her mother to meningitis almost immediately, and as her father remained in the Far East, she was brought up by an aunt in London. She was educated at Francis Holland School for Girls in London and

Sherborne School for Girls Sherborne Girls, formally known as Sherborne School for Girls, is an independent day and boarding school for girls, located in Sherborne, North Dorset, England. There were 485 pupils attending in 2019–2020, with more than 90 per cent of them ...

in 1925. She graduated with an external first class degree in English from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

in 1934.

Teaching and public work

Reader Harris immediately joined the teaching staff at Sherborne School for Girls, then one of the foremost girls'

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

s in England. During the war she was evacuated with a group of pupils from Sherborne to

Branksome Hall Branksome Hall is an independent day and boarding school for girls in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Toronto's only all-years International Baccalaureate (IB) World School for girls. Branksome Hall is located on a 13-acre campus in the Toronto n ...

School in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. This led to an exchange relationship between the two schools that was still operating seventy years later. She returned to England in 1943 to join the staff of the National Association of Girls' Clubs. She returned to Sherborne as headmistress in 1950, achieved eminence in her profession, and remained there until her retirement in 1975. According to an obituary, "Those who were pupils during her headship grew up in an atmosphere in which it was assumed that everyone had something of value to give, a better nature to be appealed to, and a duty to the community in which she lived." While still at Sherborne, Reader Harris was involved in several outside bodies. In 1964 she became the chair of the Association of Headmistresses taking over from Enid Essame. She served till 1966 when she was organising the association's response to the

Plowden Report The Plowden Report is the unofficial name for the 1967 report of the Central Advisory Council For Education (England) into primary education in England. The report, entitled ''Children and their Primary Schools'', reviewed primary education in ...

. She was at various times a member of Dorset Education Committee, the

Independent Television Authority The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 ( 2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 55) to supervise the creation of " Independent Television" (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ...

, the councils of the National Youth Orchestra and the

Outward Bound Outward Bound (OB) is an international network of outdoor education organisations that was founded in the United Kingdom by Lawrence Holt in 1941 based on the educational principles of Kurt Hahn. Today there are organisations, called schools, i ...

Trust, the

Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British Anglican mission society working with Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as ...

, where as its first woman president she brought it to espouse the 1980 Brandt Report on bridging the North-South divide, and

Christian Aid Christian Aid is a relief and development charity of 41 Christian (Protestant and Orthodox) churches in Great Britain and Ireland, and works to support sustainable development, eradicate poverty, support civil society and provide disaster rel ...

, where she was also chairman in 1978–1983. She joined the council of the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

in 1975 and chaired it in 1979–1981. She was a governor of

Godolphin School Godolphin School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private boarding school, boarding and day school for girls in Salisbury, England, which was founded in 1726 and opened in 1784. The school educates girls between the ages of three an ...

, Salisbury, from 1975 to 1986. Reader Harris was an active member of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

and a keen advocate of the

ordination of women The ordination of women to Minister of religion, ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain religious groups in which ordination ...

. She herself preached sermons in many churches, and became a lay canon after retiring to Salisbury in 1983. She was a popular speaker at functions and broadcast frequently. Her lifelong diaries are held by the school archives of Sherborne Girls. A vivid glimpse of Reader Harris in old age appeared in a 1991 article by an anonymous former Sherborne pupil, published in India: "Dame Diana Reader Harris is no mean Third Ager herself. After retiring at the age of 63, she took on a bewildering array of offices in Church, educational and charitable organizations, including Chairmanship of Christian Aid." By the age of 79, she was losing her sight and fighting her way off as many committees as possible – "I can't read the minutes." "In spite of this, her account of her schedule for the week leaves me exhausted. Her problem, she says, is not boredom, but the opposite. The battle is to cling onto the Biblical injunction to 'be still and know that I am God' – the Hebrew, she says, suggests the idea of 'pause awhile and relax.' She lives with her sister-in-law and does all the cooking herself – at some risk to their guests, as 'I never know what I'm putting in.'"

Honours

In 1972, Reader Harris was made a Dame Commander of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

for "services to Education and the Church."Supplement to the London Gazette, 1 January 1972
Supplement to the London Gazette
london-gazette.co.uk, 1 January 1972; retrieved 6 September 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Diana Reader 1912 births 1996 deaths Heads of schools in England English Anglicans Youth empowerment people Alumni of the University of London People educated at Sherborne Girls Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire British expatriates in Hong Kong