Emily Anne Eliza Shirreff
| Emily Shirreff | |
|---|---|
| Born | 3 November 1814 |
| Died | 20 March 1897 (aged 82) London |
| Education | Paris |
| Occupation | educationist |
| Parent(s) | Rear-Admiral William Henry Shirreff (1785–1847) and Elizabeth Anne Shirreff |
Emily Anne Eliza Shirreff (3 November 1814 – 20 March 1897) was a pioneer in the movement for the higher education of women and the development of the Froebelian principles in England.
She was born on 3 November 1814, the second of four daughters and two sons born to (1785–1847) and Elizabeth Anne Shirreff. She was very close to her sister Maria Shirreff (later Grey), with whom she collaborated with on educational and writing projects.
Emily and her sisters were educated from an early age by a French governess called Adele Piqet, who had a limited education. In the 1820s the family lived in France where the father was stationed. Emily was a bright scholar at an early age but after suffering from a severe illness at the age of seven she had to relearn the alphabet. Emily suffered from ill health for the rest of her life.
At the age of 14 she was sent to a boarding school in Paris but the rough conditions at the school affected Emily’s poor health and she was removed a year later. In 1829, her father took command of HMS Warspite and moved his family to Avranche in Lower Normandy. In 1831 her father was appointed to Gibraltar and did not think it his daughters needed another governess, bringing their formal education to an end.
Maria and Emily continued to improve their education through ‘self-improvement’ by travelling extensively to France, Spain and Italy, reading in their father’s extensive library, and became acquainted with many intellectuals of the age through their father's contacts.
Emily and Maria first began to write together when Mrs Shirreff brought her daughters back to England in 1834. Their first publication, Letters from Spain and Barbary, was published in 1835. Though Maria was married in 1841, the two sisters continued to write together and anonymously published a romantic novel, Passion and Principle. In 1850, they published Thoughts on Self-Culture Addressed to Women, in which they disapproved of traditional girls' education which only trained women to be dependent on men and not teach them to think for themselves. In 1858, Shirreff published her first major solo work Intellectual Education and its Influence on the Character and Happiness of Women, which further highlighted Emily's belief that women should not be educated as 'man's subordinate'.
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