Endowment for Miss Buss

In theory the Commissioners' very large powers were, as was said, sufficient to enable them ‘to take a girls’ school in Northumberland and make it a boys ‘school in Cornwall’ or vice versa. In practice, as their Yorkshire experience makes plain, they worked very much in terms of locality, applying Section 12 as a means of extending the range of Charles II's foundation in Bradford or John Drake's bequest to the people of Keighley. But there was one exception: from the very beginning the Commissioners were resolved to find endowment for Miss Buss.

Nothing shows the weakness of the girls' school lobby more than the predicament in 1870 of the very successful North London Collegiate. The idea of converting her private venture into a public school had grown on Miss Buss from the time she appeared before the Taunton Commission and she tried now to assure its future by putting it under the control of a trust. Financial security was another matter. The rich might be ready to pay through the nose to anyone prepared to teach their daughters accomplishments, but when it came to subscribing the endowment which would enable a serious girls' school lobby more than school to offer scholarships and keep up its premises, they were not interested. Appeals went in vain to City companies and people of influence. Maria Grey wrote letters to The Times urging support for the Collegiate School and for its Lower School in Camden which Miss Buss started in 1871 to meet the demand for a less expensive but equally sound education for girls.