Mrs Harriet Daniel was the proprietor, with her elder daughters Fredda and Gladys, of Airlie Ladies College in Clifton Hill. Left a widow with five children when her husband Edmund died in Geelong in1898, she eventually moved to Melbourne in 1908 in search of a way to support her family. Airlie was the last of Clifton Hill’s private schools to survive, closing at the end of 1919, and marked the end of an era for Collingwood private schools since Miss Berry’s school in Abbotsford, the only other remaining private school in the municipality, closed at the same time.

Mrs Daniel’s initial plan was to acquire Avondale, a school run by Miss Caroline Gladstone in the hall of St Paul’s Independent (Congregational) Church on the corner of Delbridge Street and McKean Street in North Fitzroy. In the end, she decided to conduct the school at the house she had bought at 55 Queens Parade, and to call it Airlie. The house had previously been Miss Farrington’s private hospital, scene of the death of a young woman under chloroform in February 1908, an event that apparently presaged its closure.

This was a bold move on Mrs Daniel’s part. Twelve private schools had been conducted in Clifton Hill in the 1890s and early twentieth century; seven closed after relatively short lives ranging from one to three years while three lasted seven to nine years, but the two that remained by 1909 were very well-established, larger, well-publicised, and popular: King’s College which had moved from Fitzroy to North Terrace Clifton Hill in 1893, and Westleigh, run by the indomitable Westgarth sisters since 1886. But as it turned out Airlie would last until 1919, by which time King’s had closed and Westleigh had moved to Northcote.

Neither Mrs Daniel nor her daughters were registered primary teachers, so they needed to employ teachers for most subjects, although Gladys was registered to teach elocution and piano and had previously taught at several Geelong schools. When they applied for registration of the school in April 1909 they had 26 pupils at primary and sub primary level, and offered English, French, Composition, Writing, Arithmetic, Algebra, Euclid, Geography, History, Botany, Music, Elocution, Singing, Drawing, Physical Exercise, Manual Work, Reading, Physiology and English Literature.

Finalising registration took some time, mainly owing to the Public Health Department’s requirements, but these were finally satisfied by August 1910. The cessation of several local newspapers was probably the reason that, compared to the late 1890s and early years of the twentieth century when lengthy (and often gushing) descriptions of private school activities were a frequent occurrence, only one description of Airlie’s prize giving has been located. This was in 1915 when the money which would have been expended on prizes was instead donated to patriotic causes, in addition to money raised for the Red Cross and the many items knitted or sewn by the pupils for the war effort.

When the school began, Fredda and Gladys were in their very early twenties, the others in their teens, and Elsie 11 or 12. Gladys and Elsie had attended Newtown Ladies College in Geelong where they regularly featured in the prize lists, with Elsie's speciality being elocution, and Gladys went on to teach there. Elsie completed her music studies with the qualification Diploma of the Musical Society of Victoria (DMSV) and began to take pupils, while Lilian presumably became a pupil at Airlie. But the years went by, and the girls began to marry and move away: Fredda in 1914, Lilian in 1917 and Elsie at the end of 1919. Receptions were held at Airlie; the orchestra, pretty decorations and dainty frocks were enthusiastically described in newspaper reports. Harriet was considering selling the house in 1919 and thought about re-locating the school to the St Paul’s hall which she had contemplated in 1909, but instead gave up the school at the end of 1919 and moved to the eastern suburbs. The Queens Parade house was sold in February 1920 and again became a private hospital, run by Nurse Williamson who retained the name Airlie. It was demolished in the 1950s.

The period of eleven to twelve years during which the family lived, studied and worked at Airlie during their formative years obviously left a long-lasting impression. Gladys’ professional notices continued to advertise her former connection with the school, while the house in Surrey Hills where Mrs Daniel’s final years were spent, with her accountant son Ireson and his wife, had been named Airlie. Even the death notice in 1940 described her as ‘late principal of Airlie Ladies College, Clifton Hill’.

To read more about this school, and other Clifton Hill, Collingwood and Abbotsford schools, see our book Bitter roots, sweet fruit.

Cummings, Bitter roots, sweet fruit

Trove lists: https://trove.nla.gov.au/list/220555

https://trove.nla.gov.au/list/221199

 MMBW Detail Plan 1217