The Employment of Female Teachers in the Small Bush Schools of New South Wales, 1880-1890

teenth century comprised about half of the teaching staff employed by the Department of Public Instruction. There were times when female teachers outnumbered males, for example in 1885, 1886, 1889 and 1890, but this was atypical. For the most part, numbers were relatively equal for the sexes with male teachers slightly in excess of females. However, when teachers are separated into the categories of teachers-in-charge, assistant teachers, pupil-teachers and unclassified teachers, wide differences between the sexes can be found. Males predominated in the status of teachers-in-charge by almost two to one (2:1) throughout the period 1880 to 1900. Females comprised approximately two times as many assistants and pupil-teachers and, until the mid-1890s, were more likely to be unclassified than were males.1 In the period 1880 to 1900 whether employed as a pupil-teacher, assistant teacher, sewing mistress, mistress in charge of an infant or girl's department, or used in an unpaid capacity as a monitor or as the wife of a teacher, women also found themselves subject to stricter moral codes, an education system that inadequately prepared them for promotional examinations and a lower salary. They were also more likely to be appointed to a remote bush school. Social conventions precluded wide employment opportunities for women before 1900 and they were more willing than were males to accept the low salary and poor conditions that the small school offered. Most of these writers also acknowledge that female teachers faced certain employment problems because they were women.2 However, there has been no comprehensive research into the status and conditions of these female teachers and there

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