Amy Garrett Badley

Mary Amy Garrett was born on 27 May 1862, the daughter of Mary Gray and Reverend John Fisher Garrett, In later life she would speak of being "proud to be a member of a family many of whose members had worked for the same great cause", adding that "she would have been ashamed if she had not tried to follow in their footsteps”. Her mother, Mary Gray Garrett, died in 1872 at the age of 40; her father died six years later, in 1878. Her first teaching position was at Gateshead high school; Badley had been working at the progressive Abbotsholme School, run by Cecil Reddie, and despite sharing Reddie's philosophy of education he found him challenging. The couple began to discuss the founding of a school together. == Bedales School ==

Bedales opened in Lindfield, near Haywards Heath, in January 1893. Girls first joined the school in the Autumn of 1898, due in no small part to "the determination and persistence of Mrs Badley", whose promotion of women's suffrage in the area was well known. This made Bedales the first English boarding school which admitted boys and girls on a fully equal basis. The decision was not without controversy, but John Haden Badley defended the decision as encouraging better relationships between the sexes into adulthood. Amy Badley was known by students of the school as 'Ma B'. At Bedales, Amy Badley is also said to have contributed "her own musical gifts and an indomitable and active concern for the emancipation of women". Amy Badley was an active supporter of women's suffrage, promoting it within the school as well as outside of it. She helped to found the Petersfield Society for Woman Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, of which she was the "mainstay" for 35 years. Badley retired in 1934, and moved with her husband to Cholesbury, Buckinghamshire, close to their son's farm. == Death and legacy ==

Amy Badley died on 30 October 1956 in Buckinghamshire. == References ==