Madge & Bibs and the Advancing Girls (2024)
Madeline Rees George was at the forefront of a revolution in women’s education that changed the world.
Synopsis:
Madeline Rees George (“Madge”) dominated girl’s education in South Australia for almost half a century. She was the long-serving Headmistress at the very progressive Advanced School for Girls and an indomitable figure in the colony and always with her, but in the shadows, was her younger sister, Marian (“Bibs”). Most of the female graduates of Adelaide University in the 19th century were former students of the Advanced School for Girls and included the influential doctors Helen Mayo and Phoebe Chapple and the success of the school played a significant role in women gaining the right to vote in 1894.
Moving between re-enactments of letters and newspaper interviews, personal anecdotes and interviews with leading historians and the Governor of South Australia, Her Excellency, Frances Adamson, “Madge & Bibs and the Advancing Girls” paints an entertaining, engaging and extraordinary picture of a radical colony that uses education to transform the status of women in society, politics and their own hearts and minds.
Endorsements:
Greg Mackie AM (History Trust of SA): An engrossing and entertaining documentary that takes the viewer to a past time when South Australian women were among the first in the world to enjoy a democratic franchise. I commend it to all.
Alison Mackinnon (author of “The New Women”): This wonderful documentary, bringing to life some wonderful but neglected figures from our past, is a great contribution to SA history and to women’s history. It deserves to be widely viewed.
Elizabeth Ho OAM (Chair History Trust of South Australia)
Rob George has done us an enormous favour by taking the truly extraordinary history of women’s education in SA off the shelves and giving it visual shape in this beautifully crafted film.
Length 65 minutes.
Producer/director: Rob George, Cinematographer: Malcolm Ludgate, Production Designer: Maureen Sherlock, Music: Guy Cundell.
