Dorothy Irene Wilkinson (22 May, 1883 – 18 September, 1947) was a United Kingdom-born Australian headmistress of Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School.

Life

Wilkinson was born in the English village of

Up Holland Up Holland (or Upholland) is a village in Skelmersdale and is a civil parishes in England, civil parish in the West Lancashire district, in the county of Lancashire, England, west of Wigan. The population at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 201 ...

. Her mother was Florence (born Shann) and her father, Reverend Christopher George Wilkinson, was to become the headmaster of

Launceston Church Grammar School Launceston Church Grammar School (informally Launceston Grammar or simply Grammar, commonly abbreviated to LCGS) is an Anglican co-educational private school in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia for Early Learning through to Grade 12. Although f ...

in Tasmania. Her father was invited to move to Tasmania by Bishop Henry Montgomery in 1899 - where he collected ancient stone tools. She was brought up there but she returned to England for her final school at the

Clergy Daughters' School The Cowan Bridge School was a Clergy Daughters' School, founded in 1824, at Cowan Bridge in the English county of Lancashire. It was mainly for the daughters of middle class clergy and attended by the Brontë sisters. In the 1830s it moved to ...

Westmorland Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland''R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref>) is an area of North West England which was Historic counties of England, historically a county. People of the area ...

in 1896. The school had been the basis of the school in Charlotte Bronte's ''

Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...

'' some years before. Wilkinson returned to Tasmania and she did some teaching at her father's school. She qualified as a teacher at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

in 1912. In the following year she gained a degree in history. left, Some of her students in 1944 Edith Badham, the long-serving head of the Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School in the Sydney suburb of

Darlinghurst Darlinghurst is an inner-city suburb in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Darlinghurst is located immediately east of the Sydney central business district (CBD) and Hyde Park, within the local government area of the Ci ...

, died in 1920. She was succeeded by Wilkinson. She was awarded her masters degree by her alma mater in 1921. She gave the school a High Anglican and Christian ethos, and wrote the school chapel hymn as well as prayers and other hymns. Wilkinson gave up being the honorary secretary of the Association of Headmistresses when she retired from the school in 1947 and she died later that year in Sydney's

Neutral Bay Neutral Bay is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Neutral Bay is around 1.5 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of North Sydney Council. Neutral Bay takes ...

, in an accident, when she fell while getting off a bus. She was succeeded by Barbara Chisholm. Her school has a portrait of her and, although now named SCEGGS Darlinghurst, "her" school was still in operation in 2024.

References

External links

Biography at ADB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, Dorothy Irene 1883 births 1947 deaths People from Up Holland School principals and headteachers Australian schoolteachers University of Melbourne alumni