Clara Ann Pater (''bap.'' 1841–1910) was an English scholar, a tutor, and a pioneer and early reformer of

women's education Female education is a catch-all term of a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education (primary education, secondary education, tertiary education, and health education in particular) for girls and women. It is frequently called girls ...

. Pater contributed to the growing movement for educational equality among women of the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

as they began to graduate from and contribute to institutions of

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after comple ...

that had traditionally been all-male. Pater served on multiple committees, such as Louise Creighton's Committee of Oxford Lectures for Ladies and the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Oxford. Pater taught

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...

from 1879, and served as the first resident tutor from 1885. She became the vice principal of Somerville in 1886.

Vera Brittain Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir '' Testament of Youth'' recounted her experiences during the Fir ...

described her as representing the "quintessence of Oxford

aestheticism Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be pro ...

" in her dress and appearance, a movement with which her brother was closely associated. After the death of her brother, essayist and Renaissance scholar

Walter Pater Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, art critic and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of the Re ...

in 1894, Clara Pater moved to Kensington,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, where she resumed teaching as a tutor of Latin and Greek at the King's Ladies’ Department. According to the King's College Magazine, Pater was widely lauded for her passion and her knowledge of the highest and noblest pieces of literature, and had a lasting impact on her students. It was during her time at King's College that Miss Pater become a private tutor to

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

. Pater tutored Virginia Woolf from 1899 to 1900, and was described by Woolf as "perfectly delightful". Pater's teachings of

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southe ...

and culture, along with the lessons she had with Janet Case contributed greatly to Woolf's views on the female's exclusion from education, female authorship, homoeroticism, and literature in general. Miss Pater is thought to have served as an inspiration for Miss Julia Craye in Woolf's 1928 short story, “Moments of Being: ‘Slater's Pins Have No Points’" as well as Lucy Craddock, Kitty Malone's tutor in the novel ''

The Years ''The Years'' is a 1937 novel by Virginia Woolf, the last she published in her lifetime. It traces the history of the Pargiter family from the 1880s to the "present day" of the mid-1930s. Although spanning fifty years, the novel is not epic i ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pater, Clara 1841 births 1910 deaths 19th-century English educators Academics of the University of Oxford Academics of King's College London Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford