ABSTRACT
The establishment of girls' public schools and colleges for women coincided with the entry of English women into a variety of new, prestigious public employments - in the professions, in local government, in the Civil Service. Women first entered the Civil Service in 1870, when the telegraph system passed to the control of the Post Office, and women employed by the private companies previously operating the system were retained and became civil servants. Alumnae of the new girls' public schools and women's colleges figured among the pioneering women entering almost every prestigious field of public endeavor opened to women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although instances of individual students who had distinguished careers are often cited in the histories of girls' public schools, there is no general body of information which would give one a reliable idea of the later occupations of public schoolgirls taken as a whole.
