Who is Hilda Annersley?

Miss Hilda Annesley was a Headmistress of the Chalet School, which was a popular series of Girls schools stories. You can find out more about her in the Chalet School Encyclopaedia or the Chalet school books which are obtainable from Girls Gone By or Amazon.

By Chumblin (Own work Own sketch from own photograph) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

The Chalet School was a girls school which was founder by Madge Bettany (later Lady Russell) in Austria.  The school subsequently moved a few times, first to Guernsey in World War II, and then to Wales and the Borders, and finally returning to the Alps, but this time Switzerland.  It offered a revolutionary curriculum, for most of its time it was tri-lingual, with two days a week spent speaking each of the three languages of the school (French, English and German). A thread on Mumsnet recently posed the question “Am I being unreasonable to think all UK schools would be better off being Chalet Schools?”

It is suggested that Miss Annersley later in life becomes a kind of Super Inspector.  So it is interesting to think what a pioneer of education for women would make of the state of education today.