Caroline Freeman was the first woman to graduate from Otago University and an outstanding educationalist. Born to an English farming family near Halifax, she emigrated to Otago as a small child in 1858. Her father’s diary of the voyage notes that she was afflicted with measles during the journey – a common cause of infant death at the time. Caroline survived, however, and the Freemans settled first at Kaikorai and then on a farm at Abbotsford.
Caroline went to the Green Island School. She was its Dux in 1866 and then became a pupil teacher at the school. Though she had no secondary education, she continued to study part-time and in 1872 made a career leap by becoming infant mistress at the large Caversham School.
Caroline Freeman enrolled as the first female student at the University of Otago in 1878 and began attending classes. It was a hard road: the male students and staff were unwelcoming and each day she had to walk the seven miles to and from Green Island. She also had to support herself by teaching and tutoring, including a period as the First Assistant at Otago Girls’ High School. After seven years Freeman graduated triumphantly with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1885, capping her achievement by winning an essay prize open to all New Zealand undergraduates. Her grit and determination were recognised too by her fellow students who ‘clapped, cheered, threw bouquets on to the stage and burst into song.’
In 1884 Freeman had begun teaching private classes and two years later she opened her own school for girls, Girton College, with funding assistance from her family. She began with just four pupils but the school expanded rapidly as it built a reputation for excellence and its focus on preparation for university work. In 1897 she was invited to open a similar college in Christchurch. She shared the work of principal at the two schools with her first pupil, Frances Ross, until 1911 when she moved permanently to Christchurch. She died there in 1914. Generations of girls were encouraged to follow in her wake, using education to broaden the opportunities available to women in New Zealand.
Miss Caroline Freeman