History
It was founded in 1834 as an interdenominational missionary society
The Rev. Baptist Wriothesley Noel was involved in its foundation (Clare Midgley, Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790–1865, 2007)
It selected and trained the ‘right’ sort of women to set up and oversee schools mainly in China and India
The women had to be pious and involved in good works; they were often governesses or daughters of ministers (Clare Midgley, Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790–1865, 2007)
The women had to sign a declaration that if they left their job voluntarily, or married, within five years, they would repay the money spent on their training (Clare Midgley, Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790–1865, 2007)
The Society was influential in the setting up of female education committees in Europe and the Egyptian Society for Promoting Female Education in the East in the 1850s (Clare Midgley, Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790–1865, 2007)
It closed in 1899, handing over responsibility to its various agents and schools to various related organisations
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What was reforming about it?
It was independent, run by women, and only employed women (Clare Midgley, Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790–1865, 2007)
Where in Bloomsbury
The women had to undergo a period of probation either at the British and Foreign School Society in Borough Road or the Home and Colonial Infant School Society, Gray’s Inn Road
Website of current institution
It no longer exists
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Books about it
History of the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East: Established in the Year 1834 (1847)
The Society published its own Journal from 1854, the Female Missionary Intelligencer; a complete set is held in the British Library
Archives
Its (incomplete) records are held in Special Collections at Birmingham University, ref. GB 0150 FES; details are available online via Mundus, the gateway to missionary collections in the UK (opens in new window)
A finding aid is available: Rosemary A. Keen, ‘Catalogue of the papers of Society for Promoting Female Education in China, India and the East, Church Missionary Society’, 1987
The collection has also been microfilmed by Adam Matthew Publications, along with the published material held in the British Library, as part of the Church Missionary Society archive; more details of this publication, which may be purchased in whole or in part, are available online from Adam Matthew Publications (opens in new window)
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