Elfrida Rathbone
Elfrida Rathbone (1871-1940) was an English educationist. She was the cousin of Eleanor Rathbone.
Elfrida Rathbone was convinced that all children were capable of learning. In 1916 she began to teach in a special school in the King's Cross area of London, for children who were not thought to be capable of learning. She worked with another cousin, Lillian Gregg, who had set up a special kindergarten for young children considered to be 'uneducable' & 'mentally defective'. Her aim was to demonstrate that these children could learn and progress if given appropriate teaching. Already, in the early 1900s Lillian Gregg was challenging the damaging effect of judgmental attitudes implicit in 'labelling' people. She adopted a young child with a learning difficulty whom she taught to read and write and function normally, but both she and the child died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.
Elfrida continued their work and, eventually the kindergarten came to include an occupational centre for children excluded from schools, and a centre with crèche facilities for women with mental and physical disabilities. She always upheld the right of children to be educated at school.
The organisation she founded now exists as The Elfrida Society, a charity in Islington, London, supporting adults and young people with learning difficulties.
Her work informed the formation of the Rathbone Society in 1969, now incorporated into the Rathbone charity.