Bertha Ronge was largely responsible for Fröbel's kindergarten concept gaining a foothold in England.
[3] Bertha was the second child of Heinrich Christian Meyer, a wealthy cane manufacturer, and his wife Agatha Margaretha (Beusch).
Bertha became an active founding member of the “Association of German Women”, the “Social Club of Hamburg Women for Equalizing Denominational Differences” (Socialen Verein Hamburger Frauen zur Ausgleichung konfessioneller Unterschiede; founded in 1848 to reduce religious discrimination against Jews[3]), and the “Association of Women and Girls in Support of German Catholics” (Verein der Frauen und Jungfrauen zur Unterstützung der Deutschkatholiken; founded in 1846 to support the German Catholics specifically and to generally promote freedom of worship of independent congregations — freireligiösen Gemeinde — in a situation where marriages and baptisms outside religions recognized by the civil authorities were not recognized under civil law[3]).
In 1861 the Ronge family moved back to Germany to Wroclaw (now in Poland) and to Frankfurt in 1863 where Bertha died.
[3] Her sister Margarethe married Carl Schurz and founded the first kindergarten in the United States in Watertown, Wisconsin (1856).