Sarah Jane Hale

Sarah Jane Hale (1851 – 1920) was an English educator most remembered for her 30-year headship of Edge Hill teacher training college.

Early life and education
She was born 15 February 1851 in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, the younger daughter of grocer John Hale. She became a pupil-teacher at Freeman's Endowed School, Wellingborough. In 1870, she gained a queen’s scholarship to study at Whitelands College, Chelsea.

Her education continued in 1885, after she had been headmistress of three elementary schools and spent eight years as the first headmistress of St Katherine’s College, Tottenham, when she resigned in order to study mental and moral science at Newnham College, Cambridge.

Edge Hill
After a brief stint as method mistress at St Mary’s Hall, Cheltenham, Hale was proposed as head of Edge Hill Training College, Liverpool, in 1890. Under her headship, the College added a new wing including two laboratories and a gymnasium, and it trained 2,071 girls including 213 headmistresses and 30 science mistresses. Hale had an interest in theatre, and the school used the performative arts for charity fundraising and to entertain visiting soldiers.

Hale died of pneumonia at the college on 1 April 1920, four months before her planned retirement.