Mary Bentinck Smith (1864-1921) was a schoolmistress, headmistress of St Leonards School from 1907 to 1921.

Life

Mary Bentinck Smith was born on 2 November 1864 at

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, the daughter of James Smith, a Congregationalist minister, and A. von Bentinck. She was educated privately in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

, and at the Public Girls' School in

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

, before studying at Girton College, Cambridge. In 1893 she gained a first-class mark in the Medieval and Modern Languages tripos, and in 1894 also took the new English tripos. From 1894 to 1897 Bentinck Smith was lecturer in Modern Languages at

Victoria College, Belfast Victoria College, Belfast is a voluntary non-denominational Independent grammar school in Cranmore Park, Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 2022, the college's stated enrolment was 870. Victoria College was awarded specialist school status in scie ...

, and from 1897 to 1899 was a lecturer in Philology at

Royal Holloway College Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), formally incorporated as Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, is a public research university and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It has six schools, 21 academic departm ...

. From 1899 to 1907 she was Director of Studies and Lecturer in Modern Languages at Girton College. She was appointed headmistress of St Leonards School in 1907.'Miss M. Bentinck Smith', ''

The Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 21 December 1921, p. 8. She died on 20 December 1921 at

St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...

. Wrought iron gates at the entrance to Girton College were erected in her memory in 1924.

Works

* (tr.) ''The language and meter of Chaucer'' by

Bernhard ten Brink Bernhard Egidius Konrad ten Brink (12 January 1841 in Amsterdam29 January 1892 in Strasbourg) was a German philologist. Life Born in the Netherlands, he attended school at Düsseldorf and Essen, studied for half a year at the University of Münste ...

, 2nd. ed. revised by Friedrich Kluge. London: Macmillan & Co, 1901. * (tr.) ''Northern hero legends'' by Otto Luitpold Jiriczek. * (ed.) ''Deux héroines de la révolution française'' by Alphonse de Lamartine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904. * (ed.) ''The prologue and the Knight's tale'' by

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908. * ''Ad vitam : papers of a head mistress''. London: J. Murray, 1927. Ed. by E. L. F. Lindsay and C. Bentinck Smith.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Mary Bentinck 1864 births 1921 deaths Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge Heads of schools in Scotland People from Hamburg Immigrants to the United Kingdom