It was in 1869 that Bradford MP Edward Miall who, standing alongside that champion of Elementary Education, William Edward Forster, proclaimed that without the influence of women, men were naught. ‘Happy will be the day throughout the whole world,’ he said, ‘when woman takes up her real and proper position.’ It was a good point. Women have influence over their offspring from the day they are born, whether that is in lessons in morality, support in adversity or counsel in decision making. Not only that – the voluntary elementary schools that were educating children at Miall’s time...