Mrs Voysey Has A Plan

The third story in Mr Blackwood’s Fabulorium, ‘Miss Biddlecombe’s Proprieties’, concerns a scandal in an academy for young ladies in Ramsgate.  When the headmistress is persuaded against her better judgement to allow sea bathing, all manner of moral depravity ensues, much of it connected to the circulation of a mysterious book. This story was suggested by the earliest surviving prospectus from the Godolphin School in Salisbury, which was issued by the Head, Mrs Voysey, in 1789. (They were having a lot more fun in Paris than in Salisbury that year.)The paragraphs most relevant to the Miss Biddlecombe story are as follows:

1st – As early rising hath, in every age, been esteemed by the most able writers to be highly necessary and conducive to health, Mrs. V. induces her Pupils to experience the charming effects thereof, by being in school at Six o’ Clock, in the Morning, during the summer Months; and is extremely happy to add, the result has exceeded her most sanguine expectation; Illness being almost a Stranger to the School.

2nd – As close Learning and Study ought ever to be accompanied with the alternate relief of innocent freedom, her Pupils are daily refreshed with intervals of cheerful recreation and agreeable exercise, so as to cause the ornamental acquirements to be pursued with fresh avidity, whereby the task of learning is blended sweetly with real pleasure and delight.

3rdly – As the whole welfare of the rising generation depends, in a great degree, upon the Seeds of Morality and Virtue which are sown in the tender Mind ere it expands to maturity, Mrs. V.’s unremitting attention is continually fixed on this GRAND POINT, so that no Books which are of the least dissipating tendency, are admitted in the school, or suffered to be read; nor shall any be found there, but such as enlarge the heart to Virtue and excellency of Sentiment.

Unfortunately, Mrs Voysey lived in the pre-camera age. By way of illustration I offer instead a photograph of one of her Victorian successors, Miss Andrews.