Wallbank began as a
Froebel-trained
teacher. Working in juvenile courts as a children's officer in
Buckinghamshire, however, she realised that far fewer children would become delinquent if they could be educated to assume their own personal responsibilities and so take their rightful place in society. To do this, she trained under
Maria Montessori and became a personal friend. In Montessori's later years, she served as her co-examiner for both the ordinary and the advanced courses. She served as Chairperson of the Montessori Association in England and as Vice-President of the International Montessori Association. She also organised the last International Montessori Congress, which met in London shortly before Montessori's death. William J. Codd, Professor of Education at
Seattle University, wrote of Wallbank: "The one on whom the robe of Montessori should fall to carry on the living tradition." Wallbank was married to the
Revd Prebendary Newell Eddius Wallbank, a long-time
rector of
St Bartholomew the Great in
Smithfield and a noted musician and scholar of the
pipe organ. It was in the priory church's gatehouse that Wallbank began the
Gatehouse School, becoming the Gatehouse Learning Centre, later expanding to
Great Missenden. Through the educational philosophy of Montessori, Wallbank was drawn to the
Catholic Church: she felt that Montessori's method naturally demanded the Catholic understanding of the
Eucharist. She became a Catholic but was advised by her spiritual director to remain "underground" so as not to embarrass her husband. After retirement, Wallbank and her husband moved out of London to
Dorney near
Eton, where they had a house on the Common. Both were involved in different ways with
Eton College, with her husband conducting services for BBC broadcasts and she coaching the weaker students and introducing them to her Slough Run. Shortly before the death of her husband, Canon Timothy Russ introduced Wallbank to the writings of the Canadian philosopher and theologian
Fr Bernard Lonergan SJ, CC. She found in Lonergan a philosophy that was deeply consonant with Montessori's educational practice and convictions. She subsequently lectured at the annual Lonergan Workshop at
Boston College; some of her lectures were published in the proceedings of the workshop. The Phyllis Wallbank Educational Trust was founded to continue her educational thinking and expertise. Wallbank remained retired in Dorney, where she continued to be active, entertaining international scholars at her home and communicating with a wide variety of people after having embraced the internet. == Educational activities ==