Katherine Bathurst

Katherine Bathurst (10 May 1862 – 12 March 1933) was a British Inspector of schools. She was frequently outspoken, according to her changing supervision. Her forced resignation resulted in a "unique example" of a government report because it showed a large difference of opinion between a ministry and its servant. Life Bathurst was born in Diddington in 1862. Her parents were Catherine Georgiana (born Moore), daughter of Rev. Calvert Fitzgerald Moore who was a chaplain to the King and the Reverend Frederick Bathurst who was a cricketer and bellringer. Several of her uncles were clergy, and her aunt Catherine Bathurst was a prioress and school founder. She was educated privately in Brighton before going on to tuition in Germany and a tour of Switzerland and Italy. She appears to have never obtained an educational qualification herself but she taught at Morley College for Working Men and Women and went to lectures for two years at the London School of Economics until 1897. In that year, she was appointed to be the third ever woman sub-inspector for education. This was her first job inspecting teaching and she noted for being outspoken in her criticism of teachers in London's East End. She was moved to Lambeth where her new supervisor Revd Charles D. Dupont noted that she could be "clever", "very dangerous" and she was "unsuitable as an inspector". Dupont told this to John Eldon Gorst who was the Vice-President of the Committee on Education. Gorst obtained similar reports when Bathurst was sent to look at infant schools in Wales. He was alarmed to see how she dealt with infant teaching in Cardiff and Barry noted that she also decided to complain to Sir George Kekewich about the inspector's task of marking teacher's exam papers. Nevertheless, she was now described as a "Junior Inspector" and she requested a transfer.