Mary Elizabeth Budd (1845-1930)

Richard Hale Budd, his daughters Mary and Emma (wearing hats) with pupils, 1884. Image H2011.49. Image courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Mary Elizabeth Budd (1845-1930) Teacher. Early Historical Society of Victoria member

Mary Elizabeth Budd, the second eldest child of Richard Hale Budd and Betsey Purves, was born at Campbell Town in Van Diemen’s Land, on 12 September 1845. At the time her father conducted a private boarding school for boys at nearby Meadowbank, but when the enterprise proved to be financially unsuccessful, the family moved to Melbourne – first to the inner suburb of Fitzroy, and then to Roodings in Brighton, where Mary was to reside until her death in 1930.

A biographer of R H. Budd observed that Mary – who did not marry – ‘lived a conservative life within her family circle, supporting her parents in their various enterprises’. But Mary was not only involved in her parents’ ongoing day-to-day activities, she also assumed the role of family historian, and was instrumental in ensuring a written account was preserved of her parents’ early years in the United Kingdom and in the Australian colonies. To this end she recorded their personal reminiscences, and these, together with additional information gleaned from letters and diaries, were incorporated into a document entitled ‘Ancient History’. Later she rewrote and edited the text, to produce two separate manuscripts – ‘Life story of a pioneer’ and ‘The chronicles of Betsy Budd and Richard Hale Budd’. These works, plus numerous family papers, are now held by the State Library of Victoria.

Mary’s father, one of Victoria’s foremost educationists, served for several decades as a senior professional officer with the various boards responsible for administering Victoria’s government-funded schools. But in 1874, after failing to secure a position with the newly-created Department of Education, Budd established a private boarding and day school – The Educational Institute for Ladies – that aimed to provide a high class education for girls, similar to that offered to boys in the colony’s leading grammar schools. His daughter Mary, and her younger sister Emma, assisted him in this enterprise for twenty-six years. Together they were responsible for supervising the boarders (who lived with the family at Roodings), as well as teaching subjects that formed part of the accomplishments curriculum – Mary (a competent pianist) provided musical instruction, while Emma taught painting and drawing. According to the Institute’s prospectus, Mary also held the position of ‘lady superintendent’ and helped her father with the management of the school. For her various duties she received the not insubstantial salary of £250 per annum.

The Educational Institute succeeded in attracting many students who sought a more advanced education than that typically offered to girls at the time, and was later described as ‘one of the best-known girls’ schools in Australia’. Pupils were encouraged to enter for the University of Melbourne’s matriculation examination, which had belatedly accepted female candidates from 1871, and they achieved for the school one of the colony’s highest success rates. Among the school’s more notable alumnae was Alice Henry, the journalist and women’s rights advocate.

At first the Institute was conducted on two separate sites: the majority of lessons were held in premises rented from the Independent Church in Collins Street, while the remaining subjects were taught at Brighton. This arrangement meant that each morning the boarders travelled from Roodings to the city by train. During one such journey, an incident occurred that had serious consequences for Mary.

On the morning of 30 August 1881, Mary and 22 boarders were on board the Brighton Express, when the train was derailed near Jolimont station, killing four passengers and injuring many more. Subsequently Mary sought damages for the injuries sustained in the accident, particularly the severe emotional shock that had rendered her unable to perform duties at the Institute for about 14 weeks, and was awarded £500.

According to Mary’s description of what happened, she had helped the pupils out of the carriage, and then remained at the scene for a short time, before walking to town by herself. Meanwhile a governess had taken the pupils to the Institute. Interestingly, a newspaper account printed many years later differs somewhat in its description of Mary’s behaviour in the aftermath of the derailment.

When the crash came she ordered the girls out on to the line, drew them up in

pairs, and marched them across the railway yard up the hill to the schoolroom, and then collapsed.

The latter version of events, presumably based on the recollection of one of the students, portrays Mary’s actions in quite a different light. Instead of ‘helping’ the students, she is said to have ‘ordered’ them out of the carriage and ‘marched’ them to the school.

Within a few years, Mary was relieved of the duty of supervising the boarders’ daily train journeys, when the Institute’s city site closed at the end of 1885. Henceforth all lessons were conducted at Brighton, and the school continued to prosper, albeit with fewer students, until ill-health led Budd to cease his teaching duties in December 1899. When their father retired, the Budd sisters’ formal association with the school also ceased. But the family maintained contact with former pupils, and even after their father’s death in 1909, Mary and Emma continued to hold annual social gatherings at Roodings. A tribute published in the Australasian indicates how they were remembered by some.

The standard set by the Misses Budd was of the highest, and under their regime the traditions which go towards the development of true gentlewomen were upheld, not only by precept, but by force of example.

At least one former pupil (Alice Chambers) may have smiled at the use of the word ‘force’ in relation to the Budd sisters, for she had ‘memories of smacked hands when a mistake was made at the piano, or when a brush slipped to smear a painting’.

Whatever the assessment made of Mary by contemporaries, her most important legacy was that she recorded her parents’ personal histories, and then ensured that these written accounts together with other family papers, were preserved.

Mary also sought to make sure that her father received adequate recognition for his professional activities. After his death, she wrote to the editor of The Eagle, a Cambridge-based journal associated with St John’s College (where Budd had been a student), suggesting that his obituary and reminiscences be published, and her wish was granted in 1913. Then in July 1917, Mary provided biographical information on her father for the Pioneer Register established by the Historical Society of Victoria – although surprisingly she did not submit information about her mother, another early colonist. Some years later, in April 1927, Mary joined the Society as member no. 478, and in the same year donated her father’s papers on aboriginal languages and anthropology, education, and biography.

Mary Budd died at Brighton on 12 May 1930, aged 84.

Carole Hooper

February 2022