Maria Byerley (1787 – 2 April 1843) was a British schoolmistress in Warwick and Stratford upon Avon. The school for girls she co-founded with her sister Frances Parkes had several notable pupils.

Life

She was the daughter of Thomas Byerley of

Etruria, Staffordshire Etruria is a suburb of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. History Home of Wedgwood Etruria was the fourth and penultimate site for the Wedgwood pottery business. Josiah Wedgwood, who was previously based in Burslem, opened his new works ...

, a nephew by marriage and sometime partner and manager of the pottery works of

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. Her father had successfully run the London showroom but Josiah Wedgwood had managed the money. Avon-Bank before 1870

When their uncle Josiah died in 1795 the business ceased to thrive, Maria Byerley, and her sister Frances, started a school to provide for their own upkeep. The school in Warwick was financed initially using Wedgwood bequests and a further loan from the Wedgwood family. The school was a success and several of the Byerley sisters would work there but they left when they married. Frances (Fanny) married in the second year, 1811, to William Parkes. The school moved several times and its curriculum was not too remarkable. In 1824 the school moved to Avonbank in a location three miles out of Stratford on Avon. The following year, Frances published "''Domestic duties, or, Instructions to young married ladies on the regulation of their conduct in the various relations and duties of married life''" which is thought to encapsulate the education that the school tried to impart to its charges. The notable families who sent their children included the future "

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", the American granddaughters of

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, the Scottish artist's model and wife of

John Everett Millais Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest s ...

Effie Gray Euphemia Chalmers Millais, Lady Millais (''née'' Gray; 7 May 1828 – 23 December 1897) was a Scottish artists' model and writer who was married to Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. She had previously married the art critic John R ...

and the niece of

Harriet Martineau Harriet Martineau (12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist.Hill, Michael R. (2002''Harriet Martineau: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives'' Routledge. She wrote from a sociological, holism, holistic, religious and ...

. In 1841 she and her sister Jane retired but the school continued under the leadership of the Misses Ainsworth at Stratford. Byerley died in London in 1843 of pneumonia. In 1949 the book ''A Quest of Ladies. The Story of a Warwickshire School [i.e. the School Conducted by Maria and Frances Byerly in the First Half of Nineteenth Century'' by Phyllis D. Hicks was published.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Byerley, Maria 1787 births 1843 deaths Founders of English schools and colleges People from Warwick 19th-century British women educators 19th-century British educators Deaths from pneumonia in England