Died 2 April 1942 | ||
Edith Agnes Cook (1859 – 2 April 1942), was in 1876 the first female student at Adelaide University, and second principal of the Advanced School for Girls in Adelaide, South Australia. She was later, as Edith Agnes Hübbe, principal of her own school in Knightsbridge, now Leabrook.
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History
William Cook (c. 1815 – 18 November 1897) arrived in SA aboard Rajasthan in 1837; on 1 January 1855 married Janet Whitehead MacNee (c. 1836 – December 1915) on 1 January 1855. They were pioneers of Pinnaroo, where William and Wilton Hack had established a sheep run, but were forced off it by the drought of 1865–1867; they moved to Kensington and Golden Grove, then from 1874 to 1884 managed the "Government Farm" (later to become Belair National Park).
Edith was born in 1859 near Campbelltown, South Australia; by 1875 she was a pupil teacher at the Grote Street Model School; in 1877 she was the school's second assistant; and promoted to first assistant the following year. Around this time she was studying at Adelaide University: Latin under Professor Lamb, botany under Professor Tate, and Physiology under Professor Stirling. In 1879 she was seconded to the about-to-be-opened Advanced School for Girls in Franklin Street as deputy to Jane Stanes. Stanes retired at the end of 1880, and Edith was appointed her successor, though a Government regulation, stipulating that a head of a school must be aged 25, had to be waived by the Minister of Education J. Langdon Parsons. While head of the school she frequently invited Catherine Helen Spence to address the students.
She married "Sam" Hübbe ( –1900) in January 1885 and late that year she resigned from ASG, to be replaced by Madeline Rees George (c. 1851–1931). Edith's sister Harriet had in 1885 founded Knightsbridge School, a co-educational school in a house owned by Euphemia Clark (Mrs. M. Symonds Clark) on The Parkway, Leabrook, and in 1886 moved the school to Edith's home in Statenborough Street, Leabrook, which the two conducted jointly, and shortly purchased a nearby house which served the school until 1921, when they retired. The school had a high reputation: Dorothea Forster "Dorrit" Black (a grand-daughter of John Howard Clark) and Dora Crompton (Mrs E. W. Harris), both recipients of the Tennyson medal for English; Maurice Giles (Mayor of Westminster), Bill Hayward, Dr. Darcy Cowan and Gladys Rosalind Cowan (Mrs. Essington Lewis) were among their successful students.
Family
William Cook (c. 1815 – 18 November 1897) arrived in SA aboard Rajasthan in 1837. He married Janet Whitehead MacNee (c. 1836 – December 1915) on 1 January 1855. Janet's sister Agnes Macnee (c. 1843 – 13 June 1913) was John Howard Clark's second wife.