Sometimes they'd write and say, 'This is how I've dealt with this predicament. If they had an issue, they'd write the college asking for advice. There've been some 7,000 nannies trained since the very first day, and they all provide feedback. 'Think of a parent with a first child, muddling through, getting on with it and just occasionally making mistakes. Through it all, Norland carried on, with a curriculum designed to produce childcare professionals who are equipped to deal with just about anything.Īnd the nannies leave Norland's classrooms having become consummate professionals, thanks in part to the thousands of trainees who've come before them. 'When the revolution kicked off in 1917, she managed to escape with them to Finland, but sadly, she died in the 1919 influenza epidemic.' 'There was one young lady who managed to look after a branch of the Imperial family in Moscow and St. Things got complicated for many of the Norlanders spread across Europe in the early 20th century, as Heren detailed in her book 'British Nannies and the Great War: How Norland's Regiment of Nannies Coped with Conflict and Childcare in the Great War. 'Very quickly, she managed to place a couple of girls within the German aristocracy which worked really well until World War I kicked off.' 'For Emily Ward, it was always one of her aspirations that she would be placing young women in aristocratic families, if not royal families,' says Heren. in Early Childhood Education and Care.Īnother of Ward's major ambitions for Norland also came to pass. Today, students at Norland study a 4-year course, graduating with a B.A. 'It went from a handful of young women to start with who signed up to attend for a couple of months,' says Heren. It was great money, especially for a woman in that era.Īs Norland's reputation grew, so did its student body. In those early years, women who landed a nanny position after their training at Norland started with salaries around £30 to £40 ($38 to $50) a year, on top of having their expenses paid by their employers. 'They were things like a greengrocer's daughter, or the daughter of people who had their own small business.'

The women who enrolled tended to have 'a tiny bit of family money,' she says. 'The fees for getting the education at Norland Institute were beyond most working-class young women,' says Heren. Still, the cost to attend was a bit steep. Ward founded Norland College in Bath, England, and at first the training program only lasted a few months.

The royal governess