School for young ladies

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32715, 18 September 1971, Page 13

School for young ladies

MUSEUM OF ' NATURE

(Contrbuted by the Canterbury Museum)

Since its inception, the Canterbury Museum has been actively engaged in the collection of provincial records, photographs, maps, paintings and sketches.

As early as 1909 a public meeting resolved to give the museum every support and added to its resolution “and in particular to preserve Canterbury archival material illustrating the history of the province." The museum has continued to devote a large proportion of its financial resources and manpower to the illustration of Canterbury’s history by the collection and judicious display of such material. The Hall of Colonial Settlement is a splendid example of this policy. The early photographs and paintings incorporated in displays in this hall are too numerous to detail in full but among them may be seen 17 photographs and one cartoon of West Coast goldrush days; 13 Dr Barker photographs of early Christchurch, original watercolours by James Fitzgerald and George Turner and several excellent copies of other early paintings by the museum’s senior preparator, Mr Ray Jacobs. Many early photographs of Akaroa are also included. All these are built in to over-all displays which each tell the .story of the place or topic illustrated. The material displayed is but the tip of the iceberg; the main bulk of the collection is cared for, catalogued and stored in the museum’s library where it is readily available to students and others wishing to consult it To one with an interest in early Canterbury and a taste for browsing through old

photographs the presence of such a wealth of material is a constant temptation. Many little known chapters of our history come to light as a result of a quarter of an hour or so in the library. To the writer, Mrs Soulsby’s school for girls—shown in the photograph illustrated—is one such discovery. Mrs Susan Sybilla Soulsby came to New Zealand with her husband Christopher Percy Soulsby and their three - year - old daughter, Lucy, in November, 1859, bringing with them according to George Macdonald in his biographical sketch in his Dictionary of Canterbury Biographies, “an expensive outfit from Thresher and Glennie and a piano by Collard”

Well-known names The location of their first house is not recorded but in May, 1863, they moved to Bessingsly, opposite Avonhead. Here their three sons, Basil, Ralph and Walter were bom and during these years Christopher Soulsby took an active part in the life of the young city of Christchurch being an ensign in the Canterbury Rifle Volunteers, a church warden at St Michael’s Church and a secretary of the Canterbury Cricket Club. At one time, in company with Dr Barker, Soulsby was engaged in a search for the clapper of St Michael’s bell which, George Macdonald' states “someone with a deficient sense of humour had stolen.’' Misfortune came to the Soulsby family in 1865 when Christopher Soulsby went bankrupt and his farm, stock and household furniture were sold. After working for a time in the office of the Wastelands Board. Soulsby

departed in 1866 to do a survey on the West Coast. Mrs Soulsby and the children remained in Christchurch, she wrote “Mr Baven has found us a little cottage near the Riccarton Parsonage" and it was probably here that she founded the school shown'in the accompanying photograph. Dr Barker in September, 1866 wrote: “Lizzy has grown a great girl. She is teasing me to send her to another school kept by a lady of the name of Soulsby whom Lizzie thinks is a better teacher than Mrs Johnson with whom she now is." Mrs Soulsby’s pupils included such wellknown Canterbury names as Cotterill, Gresson, Howdon, Hawkins, Gordon, Brittan, Dobson, Bealey and Barker. In 1867 Christopher Soulsby died on the West Coast. Soulsby stayed on in Christchurch, running the school until December of that year when she and her children returned to England where Lucy later became an authority on education, being on the staff of Cheltenham Ladies' College from 18851887; headmistress, Oxford High School for Girls, 18871916 and later headmistress of a private school for girls. She died in 1927. One of the sons, Basil, also became a distinguished man, educated at Cheltenham and at Corpus Christi, Oxford, he entered the Department ot Printed Books in the British Museum and became the librarian of the National History Museum, South Kensington. Hje was secretary of the Hakluyt Society and edited the second edition of the works of Linnaeus in the British Museum in 1929. Mrs Soulsby, shown' in our illustration surrounded by her pupils, died in 1904.