Loughlin, Elizabeth
Family background
Elizabeth Loughlin was born near Braidwood in 1875, second of ten children to policeman John Loughlin, and Sarah Jane nee Ffrench. Her father had migrated from Ireland as a young man, while her mother, also of Irish descent, had been born in the Braidwood area, growing up in a large extended family. John Loughlin became a policeman soon after arriving in Australia, stationed first in Moruya, then the Braidwood district, then Ginninderra where, conveniently for Elizabeth and her siblings, the school was directly opposite the police station. In 1892, when Elizabeth was seventeen, she passed the pupil teacher entrance exam but had to wait three years for a vacancy, being eventually appointed in 1895 to Gundagai South, the first of four siblings to pursue teaching. [The others were Peter (b. 1882), Mary (b. 1884), and Florence (b. 1891)].
Pupil Teacher: Gundagai South & Yass (1895-1899)
Once appointed, Elizabeth persevered with the demanding requirements of her pupil teacher training despite several bouts of ill-health due to 'weak lungs'. After her first year at Gundagai South, she accepted a transfer to Yass, a significantly larger school, bringing her closer to her parents who had moved to Goulburn after her father's retirement. After a year at Yass she requested a transfer to Goulburn to allow her to live at home, explaining that her salary was insufficient to cover board and lodgings, a common concern for pupil teachers. Elizabeth's request could not be accommodated at the time, so a year later she again appealed for a position in Goulburn, adding health concerns to her rationale. This raised questions about her overall fitness for teaching, prompting an examination by the Government Medical Officer who declared her to be 'in good health – though not in perfect health ... and well able to carry out her duties as a teacher'.
Wee Jasper Provisional School (1899-1905)
Her fitness for teaching thus approved, at the end of 1898 Elizabeth put herself forward as a candidate for teaching in a small school. The Yass inspector endorsed her suitability, describing her as 'earnest and painstaking', with consistent 'efficiency and usefulness'. At the end of August 1899, now aged twenty-two, she was appointed to Wee Jasper Provisional - a new school with a likely enrolment of 18 pupils, mostly children of graziers, farmers, and labourers. Her selection for the position was aided by her age and a scarcity of female teachers applying for small schools. Her annual salary of £72 was a significant increase from her remuneration as pupil teacher but lower than rates paid to males, as evidenced when her brother, Peter, began his first appointment a few months later on a salary of £92.
Elizabeth seems to have settled readily into her position as inaugural Wee Jasper teacher. She lodged close to the school with the local policeman and his family, which perhaps recalled her childhood home. Most of her pupils rode to school and as there was no horse enclosure, the parents gained permission to fence part of the school reserve at their own cost. This reserve - a level area beside the Goodradigbee River - was also used by local cricketers, who had obtained verbal permission from the Yass school inspector. Shortly after Elizabeth's arrival this informal agreement was suspended after a resident complained that the cricketing activities endangered the school building and the players' smoking habits threatened nearby grass paddocks. Elizabeth was told to gather more details on the situation, which established that the complaint was largely unwarranted, so the cricket club's access was reinstated on condition the site was only used 'outside school hours and not on Sundays'.
Elizabeth soon became involved in the Wee Jasper community, organising among other things, annual picnics with games, sports, food, and woolshed dances. Her zeal in these endeavours was captured by a reporter who noted 'Miss Lachlan (sic), teacher of the school, was hither and thither throughout the day attending to all and sundry, and to this young lady is due much of the picnic's success' [Yass Courier, 25 March 1902, p. 2]. Unfortunately, not all her endeavours were as well received. In January 1905 a resident objected to the tennis club she established, holding her personally accountable for alleged 'disturbances and disgraceful scenes' near the school grounds. Coincident with this protest, however, was Elizabeth's success in gaining promotion to a Sydney school, having achieved a higher classification by examination, and her departure from Wee Jasper seemed to mollify the complainant.
Glebe Public School (1905-1912)
Elizabeth was thirty when she took up appointment at Glebe Superior Public School in early 1905. The school was divided into three departments - Boys', Girls', and Infants' – and provided primary and post-primary education to around two thousand students. Her new position was undoubtedly a major change from Wee Jasper as she faced the common challenges of urban teaching such as overcrowding, outdated buildings, and staff shortages. She also substituted the relative autonomy of a bush school for working under direction of the Girls' Department Mistress and a Headmaster. Nonetheless, Elizabeth seems to have settled in at Glebe. After eighteen months, however, she needed six months' leave to recover from an appendectomy, eventually resuming teaching at the end of 1906.
Although Elizabeth was a long way from her family home, she maintained contact with her parents and siblings and attended several family events over the next few years as two siblings married, two joined religious orders, and one died from tuberculosis. These events resulted in two siblings moving to Sydney, so she was no longer as isolated from family. She continued to teach at Glebe and in 1910 received a promotion for 'Good Service', both her classification and salary increasing accordingly.
Although Elizabeth's career looked to be advancing well, she chose to resign in 1912, having completed seventeen years' teaching service. In contrast to most female teachers, who left work to fulfil social expectations of marriage and motherhood, Elizabeth chose to enter religious life, the third Loughlin daughter to do so. (Her family's staunch Catholicism later led another daughter to religious life and was echoed in the social awareness of her brother, Peter Ffrench Loughlin, a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly and Minister for Lands.)
Sister Mary Michael Loughlin (1913-1969)
In January 1913, Elizabeth entered the Waverley convent of the Sisters of St Clare (Poor Clares), becoming known as Sister Mary Michael. While she renounced her former name, she did not relinquish teaching, as the Poor Clares operated a primary and secondary school and here Elizabeth became a much-respected educator, particularly valued by her community for helping bring their schools 'into the full tide of contemporary educational developments'. She served her religious community for over fifty years, including 17 years as principal of St Charles's Primary School, Waverley. Elizabeth died in 1969, aged 93, and was buried in the religious section of Rookwood Catholic Cemetery.
[Biography prepared by Joanne Toohey, 2023. Sources consulted include NSW school teachers' rolls 1868-1908, NSW school and related records 1876-1979, probate packets, historic newspapers, NSW births, deaths and marriages index, 'A Lamp Lit: History of the Poor Clares, Waverley, Australia, 1883-2004', (2005) by Rosa MacGinley, and 'Early Education and Schools in the Canberra Region', (1999) by Lyall Gillespie.]
Schools
- Wee Jasper
08/1899 - 02/1905