Hellmuth Ladies' College

Hellmuth Ladies' College (c. 1895)

Hellmuth Ladies' College 

Location: Richmond Street North, London, Ontario, Canada

Opened: September 23, 1869

Closed: 1899

Hellmuth Ladies' College (aka Hellmuth College for Young Ladies) was a private college for women in London, Ontario. The college, founded by Reverend Isaac Hellmuth, was devoted to the study of arts and sciences. The college was complemented with Hellmuth College (for young men, founded 1865), also of London, Ontario. The ladies college closed in 1899, was purchased by the Sisters of St. Joseph, and transformed into Mount St. Joseph Orphanage. By the 1950s, it had become the Mount St. Joseph Academy for girls. The building was demolished in 1976.

Closing Exercises at
Hellmuth Ladies College (1886)

According to a short piece in the Scholastic Register (1869), classes were conducted in French though the school was run on "sound Protestant Christian principles." And while there were classes in the arts and sciences, all this had to be watered down with traditional training in femininity:

All the useful branches of female learning and "accomplishment" are provided, with the promise of special attention being given to moral and religious training. The old saying about national character being influenced by the education of the mothers applies more in a new than in an old country. 

Few names come up in the official accounts other than Reverend Hellmuth's. However, we are informed that the teachers would be headed by "Mrs. Mills, lately Lady Principal of Queen's College, London." (Queen's College, London--which opened in 1853--was England's first girls' school to be granted a Royal Charter for the furtherance of women's education. It still exists.)