Hi: there was a comment made in one of the past newsletters regarding schoolmistresses keeping their jobs. I don't know if they kept their jobs in the UK or not but in North Central Illinois in the 1890's a woman teacher lived on a prosperous farm with her husband and children. Her husband died. The people in the area came and sold the farm out from under the schoolteacher. they took her children away from her because she could not possibly raise them alone. And then the Board of Education informed her that she could no longer teach. My grandfather tried to stop them. He was a schoolteacher in the same school as the woman teacher. He became so angry at the discrimination against this woman teacher that he eventually quit teaching school in the State of Illinois. Illinois prides itself on being the "Land of Lincoln." ????? Annie