Mary Franklin and Rebecca Franklin

Her father was minister of the Cow Lane Chapel in Coventry and it is assumed that she was born in the same city.

[1] Her siblings included aspiring missionaries but her sister Rebecca also wanted to teach and she had studied in France for a year.

The students were offered music, French and German from guest teachers, but the basic education came from the Franklin sisters.

Rebecca was keen on deportment and that students should speak in grammatically correct and thought out sentences.

[1] Mary Ann Evans (later George Eliot) was one of the boarders at the school[3] from age thirteen to sixteen.