A Liverpool Exemplar - Fanny Louisa Calder

Fanny Louisa Calder is considered one of the most influential women in the education of females. She was born in Rodney Street on the 26th of March 1838 to American parents and her father bought and sold cotton. This meant living in America for an amount of time so by 1861, having moved to 54 Upper Parliament Street, Fanny was living with her mother and three sisters in 49 Canning Street where she stayed for sixty years. She was the youngest of eleven and was a dedicated Anglican, attending and teaching in Sunday School and running a Bible class for mothers. In her young life she partook in women’s voluntary work becoming concerned for the state of the poor and was a pioneer of domestic science, responsible for the Fanny Calder School of Domestic Science.

Decent food and an understanding of domesticity were the first steps needed to rectify social inequality and poverty – this was the belief of Fanny Louisa Calder. Setting up the Liverpool School of Cookery in 1875, with classes at St Georges Hall, her aim was to improve the diets and lifestyles of the people of Liverpool by teaching them how to cook and clean and look after themselves. There were 58 members on the School committee including the Countesses of Sefton and Derby. Within a couple of years premises had been secured in Colquitt St, where women were taught about cooking and then took their skills into the hearts of communities where Fanny would also go and teach girls in the industrial schools. They were given practical demonstrations and asked to take notes, then the following week they would have to come back with neatly handwritten instructions and bake themselves.

With her progress in Liverpool, Fanny wanted to promote women’s education throughout the UK and so worked with similar institutions in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Yorkshire, resulting in the 1876 formation of the Northern Union of Training Schools of Cookery. The women’s education movement founded its first national organisation in 1897, the Association of Teachers of Domestic Science, in which Fanny played a fundamental role.

Throughout her life she wrote numerous articles and letters about her mission of bringing domestic science into the education system whilst also promoting the distribution of affordable cookery books produced at the school. She co-authored, with the head teacher at the cookery school, E.E. Mann, the first laundry work teaching manual, ‘A Teachers’ Manual of Elementary Laundry Work’ published in 1891. By then she was rolling out classes in laundry, dressmaking and millinery, all under the banner of ‘housewifery’ and was able to subsidise fees by getting grants from the likes of the Rathbones, Booths and Tates. She also wrote a number of recipes herself, the most well-known being her War Cake recipe, the original hand written copy of which is currently held in the Liverpool John Moores Universities Archives. During World War 1 she ran cookery classes in Colquitt St aimed at making the most of what was available on little income given that the men were away at the Front or worse, killed in action. 

 

The huge successes of her work in Liverpool lead to national recognition and Fanny was in regular contact with Florence Nightingale and over the years they became friends. In a letter in which Florence congratulates Fanny on her work in Domestic Science she even states her belief that Fanny should be canonised by the Roman Catholic church for her work. In 1900 a letter, recognising her accomplishments,  was sent to her from R.H Collins at Windsor Castle the Comptroller of the Household of H.R.H The Duchess of Albany who was a Daughter-in-law of Queen Victoria and widow of the Queen’s youngest son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany.

By 1903 Fanny was such an important figure in women’s education that she was invited to join the Liverpool Education Committee. In 1913 she was given an honorary MA in Education from the Liverpool University for her achievements in creating and improving women’s education throughout her 50 years of teaching. Originally the school was named the Liverpool School of Cookery however after Fanny Calder was no longer able to fund the school in 1920 she gave the running of the school to the Liverpool Education Committee who renamed the school the F.L. Calder College of Domestic Science. In a letter to Fanny in 1892 Florence Nightingale referred to her as the 'Saint of the Laundry, Cooking and Health' in reference to her outstanding work in promoting the teaching of the domestic sciences throughout the UK. Fanny Calder remained a spinster all her life and passed away on 6th June 1923. She was buried in Smithdown Road Cemetery alongside two of her sisters, who had also never married.

At 49 Canning Street in Liverpool a plaque has been placed in her memory. Fanny L Calder undoubtedly was the initiator of, and most significant campaigner for, the recognition and establishment of domestic science in education at all levels. She also helped bring about a revolution in attitudes to education, to women’s roles in and beyond the domestic sphere, and in untold social reform and benefit.

see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/07/a-liverpool-exemplar-douglas-duggie.html