Objects of Substance- The Mackinlay Honour Board

Mary Mackinlay was born near Lockerbie, Scotland, circa 1841. She attended Cheltenham Ladies College as a “mature age” student and in the school’s 1870 account book, a note has been made of payment by Mary for courses in music, drawing, physical geography, and Italian. Renowned principal, Dorothea Beale, gave her “high recommendations” and introduced her to highly sought after formal teacher training, aims, and methods. Miss Beale’s mentoring and Mary Mackinlay’s aptitude led to Mary teaching English at Cheltenham Ladies College until 1875 and then at Bath High School, where several of Miss Beale’s students were employed. Mary then attended the University of St Andrews from 1877 to 1878 – taking English Literature, French, Education, and Physiology. She was awarded a L.L.A. Diploma (Lady Literate in Arts) which allowed Mary and other women to study by correspondence. On 1 st February 1878, a Girls Grammar Board Minute noted that the Chair, Mr Justice Charles Lilley, had written, via the Agent General in London, to the Lady Principal, Girton College, Cambridge, Marianne Bernard, asking of her to recommend a Lady Principal for Girls Grammar, with a salary of 300 pounds per annum. He stipulated that the new principal should be “capable of teaching the higher work of the school, especially in Latin, Euclid, and algebra, with French or German as additional subjects … have some experience of teaching, and she should not be too young – by this he meant not under twenty-seven”. (Theobald, 1996, p. 102) Mary Mackinlay met all these requirements, with her L.L.A, and Marianne Bernard spoke highly of her “attainments and powers of teaching”. ( The Queenslander , 1878). She was also 37 years old at the time of her appointment, and as the reporter in The Queenslander noted “Miss Mackinlay has a kind and genial manner which is calculated to win and retain the confidence of her new pupils.” Miss Mackinlay arrived in Brisbane in October 1878, on the incoming Torres Strait mail steamer, and was to lead the School most astutely, making vast improvements during the three years that she was in charge. “The school had prospered during her leadership. She found it with some forty pupils on the roll; she left it with eighty. She found it in debt; she left it out of debt and with every prospect of its henceforth paying its own way and standing upon its own merits.” ( The Week, Saturday 24 December 1881 p.8). She also inaugurated a boarding system by establishing a residence for the pupils on Petrie Terrace and, in 1881, there were 18 boarders. ( The Week 1904, “Memorial to Miss Mackinlay”)