Ada Benson or Ada McDowall (27 November 1840 – 11 October 1882) was a British headmistress and educationist. She is known for her leadership at Oxford High School,

Norwich High School for Girls Norwich High School for Girls is an independent day school for girls aged 3 to 18 in Norwich, England. The school was founded in 1875 by the Girls’ Public Day School Company (now the Girls' Day School Trust), which aimed to establish schools ...

and

Bedford High School for Girls Bedford High School for Girls was an independent school for pupils aged 7 to 18 in Bedford, England. It was one of a number of schools run by the Harpur Trust. The school was located on its original site in Harpur ward, near the centre of Bedford ...

Life

Benson was born in

Winson Green Winson Green is a loosely defined inner-city area in the west of the city of Birmingham, England. It is part of the ward of Soho. It is the location of HM Prison Birmingham (known locally as Winson Green Prison or "the Green") and of City Hospi ...

in 1840. In 1852 she and her siblings became orphans and the children were divided into different homes. Benson and her sister lived with Mary Sidgwick and her husband who was a Reverend in

Rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...

. Benson's education was overseen by her elder brother Edward White Benson who lived locally and who was in time to be the Archbishop of Canterbury.Ruth Pryor, ‘Benson , Ada (1840–1882)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 200
accessed 10 October 2016
/ref> When she was nineteen her brother agreed that she could continue to study and work as a governess in Germany. Her German was good enough for her to be able to publish her translation of

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

's ''King of the Golden River'' in 1861. Some kind of mental illness meant that she had to return to England. She did however start a school with her sister but although successful it was wound up on her sister Eleanor's marriage in 1872 to Thomas Hare. Benson founded Oxford High School and it was opened on 3 November 1875, with twenty-nine girls and three teachers with Benson as head. The school was at the Judge's Lodgings at 16 St Giles', central Oxford.St Giles' House (Judge's Lodgings), 16 St Giles' Street, Oxford
(where OHS was founded). It was the 9th school opened by the

Girls' Public Day School Company The Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) is a group of 25 independent schools, including two academies, in England and Wales, catering for girls aged 3 to 18. It is the largest group of independent schools in the UK, and educates 20,000 girls each ye ...

. As the school was also the Judges' Lodgings, all the pupils were given a holiday when the

Assize The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...

Judge visited. The school moved to 38 St Giles' in 1879 Sherwood, Jennifer, and

Pevsner, Nikolaus Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

, ''The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire'',

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Matilda Ellen Bishop Matilda Ellen Bishop (12 April 1842 in Tichborne, Hampshire – 1 July 1913 in Camberwell, London) was the first Principal of Royal Holloway College, University of London and was responsible for establishing many of the early traditions at the i ...

Caroline Bingham, ‘Bishop, Matilda Ellen (1842–1913)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 10 October 2016
/ref> as Benson was obliged to resign again due to illness. She is also known for her leadership at Norwich School and Bedford School. Benson died in

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benson, Ada People from Birmingham, West Midlands 1840 births 1882 deaths

Ada Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, ...

19th-century English educators Women heads of schools in the United Kingdom 19th-century women educators