Dame’s school

Susanne at the Railway Hotel introduced me to Lynn, who lives in Semaphore in a terrace house that was built by a Sea Captain for his wife (and used to have a trolley car going down that street).

Apparently Lynn’s great grand mother was a lady called Sarah Jane Lipscome. She ran a Dame School on Clare St from 1867 – 1894 and also taught a Sunday School at St Pauls. I wasn’t sure what a Dame’s school was, but apparently it was a school for young ladies. Knowing more about Port Adelaide now it seems that there were many sea captains and people well off, so it is possible it was a type of finishing school or ladies education for young women.

Lynn told me that as Sarah Jane was a single woman she was unable, under the law at that time, to obtain a license to run a school, but was able to have the assistance of her sister who was married, to obtain the license.

Project: Port Inhabited.