Sarah Lawrence (educator)

She ran a girls' school in Gateacre near Liverpool, and was a family friend of the Aikins of Warrington, and an associate of members of the Roscoe circle.

[11] In Sarah's case, she was a governess in the household of Peter Crompton of Eton House, a radical physician and anti-corruption campaigner in Liverpool.

[12][13] After the death of her parents Nathaniel and Mary, Sarah Lawrence, described as "a writer, poet and good Horatian scholar", with other members of her family founded a school for girls in Gatacre near Liverpool in 1807; she became the principal.

[15] Together, in early decades of the 19th century, the two schools at Gateacre were "where the sons and daughters of the merchant aristocracy of Liverpool were educated".

[16] Schools of this time run in accordance with Unitarian views might do so tacitly, and attract pupils from Anglican families.

[20][21] Advertising a school in Allerton, Liverpool in 1828, Voelker and Staehle used as references Sarah Lawrence, Thomas Stewart Traill and the Rev.

[7] After a generation Sarah Lawrence's school suffered from financial limitations and parsimony, and it was taken over in 1839, transferred to the Misses Holland.

[7][14][11] By this time, there was a fashionable boys' preparatory school at Gateacre, run by Miss Hunt, and attended by Edmund Knowles Muspratt and Henry Enfield Roscoe.

[29][30] She was an only child, her father Joseph Bourn being in business, probably textiles, and living in Bolton le Moors; her mother was Ellen Gaskell.

Her father made difficulties about her first marriage, requiring that her fiancé should give up his medical career and move to north-west England as a fustian manufacturer.

Born in London, she attended the school for about 15 months around 1833, finding it an austere, strict place with only cold water to wash in, of around 40 girl boarders.

[41] In the early history of Bedford College, London, she served as Secretary to the Lady Visitors, a group of board members responsible for discipline.

[47] In 1825 there were five surviving sisters, Eliza and Frances having died as adults: in order of age, Sarah, Mary, Arabella, Jane, and Harriet, none of whom married.

[49][50] This was in 1832 at the end of Coleridge's life: he replied to a letter from Sarah recalling memories of her and Peter Crompton's wife Mary.

[56] Mary Lawrence who died at Warwick Place, Leamington Spa, a few weeks later, formerly of "The Grange, Gatacre", presumably, was her sister.