Elizabeth Tripp

Elizabeth Tripp née Leigh (1809-1899) was an Australian educator. She was the founder and manager of one of the first lasting schools for girls in Melbourne the East Leigh in Melbourne, between 1859 and 1881.

Tripp was born to the jurist William Leigh in Devonshire in England. In 1831, she married her cousin, the lawyer William Upton Tripp (d. 1873), with whom she had five daughters and a son. She emigrated to Australia with her family in 1850.

In 1859, she separated from her spouse, and opened a school for girls in Melbourne with the help of her daughters. From the 1850s onward, it was common for an educated woman in Melbourne to open a school for girls, but normally, these schools were only a temporary method for self-support: the East Leigh was the first girls school in Melbourne to become a successful and permanent educational institution and was a such a pioneer institution. First only assisted by her daughters, Tripp was soon able to engaged professional teachers.

Tripp was also a successful businessperson within the stock market.

References

Marjorie R. Theobald: Knowing Women: Origins of Women's Education in Nineteenth-Century Australia

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