Froebel College is one of the four constituent colleges of the University of Roehampton.

History

The college was founded as a women's teacher training college in 1892 by followers of Friedrich Fröbel. The Froebel Society had been formed in 1874 and in 1892 Julia Salis Schwabe led an initiative to found a college for training teachers. It was imperative that the trainee teachers should be allowed to practice whilst they were learning so a school/nursery was established in parallel.^[1] The college became co-educational in 1965.^[2]

Emilie Michaelis (1834–1904) was the First Principal of Froebel College serving from 1892 until 1901.^[3] She was succeeded by Esther Lawrence (1862–1944) who led for over 30 years finishing in 1932.^[4] The third Principal was Eglantyne Mary Jebb MA (1889–1978) who led until 1955^[5] when she was replaced by her friend Molly Brearley.^[6]

Brearley created courses where teachers could gain diplomas and the college became involved in cross-curricular Bachelor of Education courses. In their first year, students would learn about child development, while simultaneously learning about subjects like maths and science. The college's ideas were contained^[6] in, Fundamentals in the First School, which was a book that Brearley and Raymond Bott edited and published in 1969.^[7] Brearley retired in 1970.^[6]

In 1975, the college became part of the Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, which became Roehampton University in 2004.

People associated with the college

Notable alumna

• Christie Ade Ajayi (born 1930), Nigerian specialist in early childhood education^[8]

Notable alumnae of the kindergarten

• Helena Rosa Wright (1887–1982) was a doctor and a pioneer in birth control^[9]
• Margaret Lowenfeld (1890–1973) was a pioneer in child psychology and psychotherapy^[9]