Georgiana Archer

Georgiana Archer (born September 27, 1827 in Edinburgh , † November 21, 1882 in Montreux ) was a Scottish teacher working in Berlin and founder of institutes and associations for education and health professions.

Live and act

The Victoria Lyceum and the drawing school of the Association of Berlin Women Artists in Berlin, 1893

Georgiana Archer was born on September 27, 1827 in Edinburgh, Scotland, as the daughter of a doctor of Old Saxon origin. Her mother, nee Gregory, came from the Celtic family McGregor. At fourteen, she and her four siblings, the oldest of whom, her 20-year-old brother, was an aspiring painter, were orphans. In the following years he took care of his younger siblings and later became a respected history and portrait painter in England.

Georgiana Archer first attended a private school in Edinburgh with her sister Sarah. For a short time she worked as a domestic help and educator for the children of a sick lady and then spent a short stay with an aunt in Edinburgh. After she realized how inadequate her upbringing had been, in 1851 she followed her wish for academic training and went to Germany for this purpose, namely to Lüneburg , where her sister followed her. Both took lessons from the high school teacher Dr. Schuster, who later became the director of the Realgymnasium in Hanover (1882). Her sister Sarah had married Schuster in 1853. When he was transferred to Klausthal , she followed both of them, stayed there for some time, returned to Edinburgh, but then settled permanently in Berlin in 1857 .

Miss Archer was soon a sought-after teacher in the educated families of Berlin, who had made it her business to link the interests of her homeland with her adopted home. The German-English society was founded with her active participation. The Crown Princess Victoria entrusted her to teach her daughters the English language. In 1882 she had to stop her lectures at the Lyceum for health reasons, the doctors first sent her to Godesberg , later to Pyrmont and finally to Montreux , where she died on November 21, 1882. She found her final resting place in Territet near the English church.

Victoria Lyceum

In 1869 Georgiana Archer founded the Victoria Lyceum, a high school for girls to expand the scientific education of women from better classes, which should also serve as preparation for university studies for women. She herself selected the men who she believed should be on the board of the institution and those whom she wanted to recruit as teachers for the house. She succeeded in attracting luminaries from science, art and literature to teach at the lyceum.

Under her leadership, the Victoria Lyceum was opened on January 14, 1869. From initially 70 students in four lectures, she developed the house to 900 students in 27 different courses in the winter semester of 1882 by the time she died.

The feminist and suffragette Anita Augspurg was one of the school's renowned students .

Additional Services

Georgiana Archer founded the Association for Home Health Care and the Medical Association for Teachers in Berlin, through the "Miss Archer Foundation" established after her death, sick teachers were given bathing trips.

literature

• Lina Morgenstern : The women of the 19th century, biographical a. cultural historical time and character paintings, third series. Publishing house of the Deutsche Hausfrauen-Zeitung, Berlin 1891.
• Ulrike Henschke : Miss Archer. Commemorative address given on April 18, 1883 in the lecture hall of the Victoria Lyceum. Springer, Berlin 1884. Digitized by the Central and State Library Berlin, 2017. urn: nbn: de: kobv: 109-1-12261350
• Rainer von Hessen (ed.): Victoria Kaiserin Friedrich (1840–1901). Mission and fate of an English princess in Germany. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38407-8 , pp. 98f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heinrich von Sybel: About women's education, two lectures given in the Berlin Victoria Lyceum, October 14, 1883
2. ↑ Lida Gustava Heymann u. Anita Augspurg: Experienced - Seen. German women fight for freedom, justice and peace. 1850-1940, ed. by Margit Twellmann. Meisenheim: Anton Hain, 1972, p. 11.
3. ↑ Gustav Leinhaas: The highly significant activity of Crown Princess Victoria ... ( Memento of the original from December 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Lida Gustava Heymann u. Anita Augspurg: Experienced - Seen. German women fight for freedom, justice and peace. 1850-1940, ed. by Margit Twellmann. Meisenheim: Anton Hain, 1972, p. 11.
5. ^ Otto von Leixner: Social letters from Berlin. Verlag Friedrich Pfeilstücker, Berlin 1894, page 226