Millicent Hughes Mackenzie (1863 in Bristol – 10 December 1942 in Brockweir) was a British professor of education at University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, the first female professor in Wales and the first appointed to a fully chartered university in the United Kingdom. She wrote on the philosophy of education, founded the Cardiff Suffragette branch, became the only woman candidate in Wales in the 1918 general election, and was a key initiator of Steiner-Waldorf education in the United Kingdom.
Early life and education
Hester Millicent Hughes was born in 1863 into the family of Walter William Hughes of Bristol. She attended school in the Bristol suburb of Clifton and later was sent for further schooling to Switzerland, after which she attended University College, Bristol and the Cambridge Teacher Training College.
Career
She was normal mistress at the University College of South Wales & Monmouthshire from 1891 to 1904. This is where she met John Stuart Mackenzie, professor of philosophy at the University College, a Hegelian and author of philosophical works and text books. The couple married in 1898, and at her request the university allowed her to continue as normal mistress thereafter. When the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in Cardiff opened their teacher training for female students, she was appointed to head it, the university being then just a few years old and having a welcoming and enlightened policy towards female students and staff. She made history through her appointment to associate professor in 1904 and to professor of education (women) in 1910, making her the first female professor in Wales and the first female professor appointed to a fully chartered university in the United Kingdom. Mackenzie was appointed a member of the Senate in 1909; she was the first woman appointed to the Coolege's Senate, though the Senate minutes record her as having attended and been active in Senate meetings since 25 October 1904.
She played a key role in the establishment of the College School. This was a demonstration school founded by the university in which members of the Secondary Training Department for Women taught boys until the age of 10, when they went on to public school, and girls until they were 18 or 19.
In 1909, she published Hegel's Educational Theory and Practice, her most important book. She also published many other books and lectures on education. "Much of her work focused on the methods for preparing teachers for working in schools across the country and advocated co-educational instruction. She researched Welsh and UK schools and also drew insight from the US and European education systems. In 1894, with co-author Amy Blanche Bramwell, they wrote the title Training of Teachers in the United States, a title that focused on the co-education in US teacher trainer schools. She also authored Moral Education: The Task of the Teacher (1909); Freedom in Education. An Inquiry into its Meaning, Value, and Condition (1905)”
Meeting with Rudolf Steiner's education
In 1913, she became a member of the Theosophical Society and on 2 July 1914 joined the London branch of Harry Collison, which was devoted to studying the works of Rudolf Steiner, who had appointed Collison as his official translator into English.
In 1915, Barbara Foxley took over her role as Professor of Education as Mackenzie and her husband went into early retirement to travel and write. The Council Minutes, 1914–1915 record a meeting of the Council on 14 May 1915, accepting their resignations "with deep regret". It was not until after World War I, when travel had become possible again that she went, together with her husband, on two lecture tours, visiting India, Burma, Ceylon and Europe between 1920 and 1922, and Berkeley, California in 1923. In August 1921 the couple were present at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland to take part in the Summer Art Course that had been organised by Baron Arild Rosenkrantz for English participants. Here they met Rudolf Steiner for the first time, spoke to the people working at the Goetheanum and experienced the educational work being done at the first Waldorf school. Rudolf Steiner spoke highly of them and of the philosophical works they had written, in particular Hegel's Educational Theory and Practice and Jack Mackenzie's Elements of Constructive Philosophy.