Mary Ann Cooke (1784-1868) was a British

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

and educator, active in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

.Laird, M. Wilson ée Cooke Mary Anne (1783/4–1868), missionary. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 10 Jul. 2021, from https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-48959. In 1821, she became the first single female missionary to be sent from

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

to India, and founded a network of missionary

girls' schools Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education and gender-isolated education, is the practice of conducting education with male and female students attending separate classes, perhaps in separate buildings or schools. The practice of ...

in Calcutta, which were famous as the first schools for girls in India, laying the foundation for modern female education in India.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke, Mary Ann 1784 births 1868 deaths British people in colonial India British Christian missionaries People from Kolkata 19th-century British educators 19th century in Kolkata 19th-century British women