ABSTRACT
The nineteenth-century demand for single women to work in the mission field coincided with problems for British women, especially of the middle classes, of restricted roles and the fear of demographic redundancy. Nineteenth-century thinking on the position of women in society was dominated by the idea of the lady. Education was geared to the ideal of womanhood, so that most middleand upper-class girls were taught only the accomplishments that would ensure early marriage to a suitable husband. As marriage was virtually the only acceptable career for middle-class women, the claim, often repeated, that there was a surplus of over one million women in Britain, struck fear into female breasts. Visible distress among unsupported middle-class women was caused by the failure of employment opportunities to keep pace with changes in society. Bishop Colenso was the first to attempt to solve the problem of marriage soon after arrival.
