| Description | Comprising: results letters re Queen’s Scholarship and teaching certificate exam, parchment teaching certificate, L.L.A. certificates 1928, 1929 and 1930, and photos of Edith, plus cohorts Mabel Llewellyn and Lily Turner.
In official documents, she is referred to as Mary Edith Smith. |
| Administrative History | Notes from donor (grand niece): 'She was born in 1880, and died in 1971. After her training she went on to teach in schools in the Macclesfield area. She also went on to do further examinations [through] St Andrews....
She had 2 sisters and 3 brothers. The other sisters were also teachers, and two of the brothers the same. Her uncle was Professor Frank Smith from various academic establishments, including Liverpool University. One of the other brothers went to South Africa, to teach, but sadly drowned at a very early age, when he had only been there a year. The remaining brother went into the family farm. He was Edith's twin, and my grandfather, I know nothing about the other people in the photograph, but they did correspond for a number of years.'
Wiki: 'A Lady Literate in Arts (LLA) qualification was offered by the University of St Andrews in Scotland for more than a decade before women were allowed to graduate in the same way as men, and it became popular as a kind of external degree for women who had studied through correspondence, or by attendance at non-university classes. In terms of academic standard, it was equivalent to the Master of Arts.
Until 1892 women were not admitted to Scottish universities and the LLA was the nearest qualification to a degree which was open to women in the country....
Even after 1892, the LLA continued to be popular with women who wanted to study for an arts degree without needing to attend one particular institution for three or four years. Thousands of women received an LLA before it was discontinued in the 1930s.' |