Ann Jellicoe (educationalist)

Anne Jellicoe, née Anne Mullin (1823-1880) was a noted Irish educationalist best known for the founding of the prestigious Alexandra College, which became a force in women's education under her management.

She was born at Mountmellick, County Laois, the daughter of a Quaker schoolmaster. She married John Jellicoe, a flour miller in 1846 and moved to Clara, County Offaly two years later. There she set up an embroidery and lace school to provide employment for young girls. The Jellicoes moved to Dublin in 1858 where she helped revive Cole Alley Infant School for poor children of all creeds run by the Quakers. She prepared a paper on working conditions for young factory girls in Dublin in 1861 and a year later visited the women's prison at Mountjoy. She founded the first employment society for women in Ireland known as the Queen's Institute to provide adult technical training classes for women. This led her to realise that women must be educated before they could be trained. In 1866, with the help of Archbishop Chenevix Trench, she founded Alexandra College, Dublin, the first women's college in Ireland to aim at a university type education. The Governess Association of Ireland followed in 1869 and Alexandra School was founded in 1873. [O'Connor, Anne V. "Anne Jellicoe". in Mary Cullen & Maria Luddy (eds.), "Women, Power and Consciousness", Dublin, 1995.]

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