Constance Hoster
Constance Paulina Hoster (8 July 1864 – 1 June 1939) was a British writer and pioneer in training women for employment.
Born in St Pancras, London, the only daughter of Marcus Kalisch, an Old Testament scholar and migrant from Prussian Pomerania, she had a brother, Alfred Kalisch, who later became a barrister and journalist.[1]
On 9 October 1889, at Dieppe, she married Albert Bertram Mathew Hoster, of Saint-Nicolas-d'Aliermont, Normandy, and Grove House, Sydenham.[2]
In 1895, she petitioned for divorce and in 1896 obtained a final decree in the High Court of Justice.[3]
In 1893, Hoster began to train women in typing and shorthand writing, to work as secretaries. She also launched an employment agency for women and founded the Educated Women Workers Loan Training Fund.[4][5]
By January 1909, Hoster was occupying St Stephen's Chambers, Telegraph Street, London E.C., running a business called Queen Anne's Typewriting Shorthand & Translating Offices.[6] By the time of her death in 1939, she owned Mrs Hoster's Secretarial College in the Cromwell Road, Kensington, and another in the City of London at St Stephen's Chambers.[5]
An obituary noted that Hoster trained "well-educated women" for positions in the secretarial, commercial, and political worlds: in short, applicants needed to have a good education before coming to her.[5]
Hoster was one of the first women to be elected to the London Chamber of Commerce.[7] She also became President of the City of London Society for Equal Citizenship and vice-president of the Union of Jewish Women and of the Society of Women Journalists.[5]
A Conservative, Hoster was on the Committee of the City of London Conservative and Unionist Association.[5]
She belonged to the Ladies' Carlton Club, the Cowdray Club, the Langbourn Club, and the Overseas, Pioneer, and Forum Clubs.[5]
Hoster died on 1 June 1939, at 7 Sheffield Terrace, Kensington, leaving an estate valued for probate at £20,565;[8] but Mrs Hoster's Secretarial College in Kensington continued to flourish. During the Second World War, it was evacuated to a large house near Stamford, Lincolnshire, but returned to London when the bombing threat was over. The secretarial course typically lasted six months and was funded by charging fees. In the 1940s, the Union of Jewish Women provided a scholarship at Mrs Hoster's to be held by a Jewish girl recommended personally by the Union.[9]
By the 1950s, the College was known for turning out "gels for the establishment".[10] It continued in business until 1969, with Mrs P. C. Bloncourt serving as Principal from 1956 to 1969. In its later years it was at 27, Brompton Road.[11]
Selected publications
[edit]- Constance Hoster, "The training of educated women for secretarial and commercial work, and their permanent employment" in Journal of the Royal Society of Arts Vol. 65, No. 3353 (23 February 1917), 262–269
- Ellen, Countess of Desart, Constance Hoster, Style and Title: a Complete Guide to Social Forms of Address (London: Christopher's, 1925)
Notable students of Mrs Hoster's Secretarial College
[edit]- Lady Cynthia Postan[12]
- Monica Maurice[13]
- Stevie Smith[14]
- Doreen Pugh, secretary to Winston Churchill[15]
- Joan Bright Astley[16]
- Jane Cornwell[10]
- Anne Griffiths[17]
Notes
[edit]- ^ "Constance Hoster, of 29 Grosvenor-place, S.W.1. and St. Stephen’s Chambers, Telegraph-street, E.C.2" Marylebone Mercury, Saturday 10 June 1939, p. 3
- ^ "MARRIAGES: HOSTER—KALISCH – On the 9th inst., at the British Consulate, Dieppe, by H. M. Consul, H. W. Lee-Jortin, Albert Bertram Mathew Hoster, of St. Nicholas d'Aliermont, Seine Inférieure, and Grove House, Sydenham, to Constance Paulina Kalisch", Epsom Journal, Tuesday 22 October 1889, p. 2
- ^ "Albert Bertram Matthew Hoster" in England & Wales, Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1918, accessed 13 July 2025 (subscription required)
- ^ "In Memoriam: we have to record with very great regret the death of Mrs Hoster", Appendix 23 in Anne Bridger, "A Century of Women's Employment in Clerical Occupations 1850–1950", University of Gloucester thesis, accessed 15 July 2025
- ^ a b c d e f "PIONEER AMONG WOMEN" (obituary) in Birmingham Mail, Saturday 3 June 1939, p. 9
- ^ Letter from Constance Hoster to Miss Strachey, digital.library.lse.ac.uk, accessed 13 July 2025
- ^ "CITY WOMAN PIONEER Mrs. Constance Hoster Dead" (obituary), Evening News (London), Saturday 3 June 1939, p. 5
- ^ "HOSTER Constance Pauline" in Wills and Administrations (England and Wales) 1939 (London: High Court of Justice, 1940), p. 373
- ^ "We seek to promote, wherever possible, the social, moral, and spiritual welfare of the Jewish woman: the Union of Jewish Women collection", University of Southampton Special Collections, accessed 14 July 2025
- ^ a b "Jane Cornwell obituary: Editor and wife of John le Carré", The Times, 9 March 2021, accessed 12 July 2025 (subscription required); archived at archive.ph
- ^ "Mrs P.C.Bloncourt, Principal of Mrs Hoster's Secretarial Training College: correspondence, 1956-69", University of Southampton archives, accessed 13 July 2025
- ^ "Lady Cynthia Postan" The Times, 6 December 2017 (subscription required)
- ^ "Monica Maurice: Mine Lighting Engineer", The Woman Engineer volume IV (December 1935), pages 66–67
- ^ "Smith, Stevie (1902–1971)" Representative Poetry Online, accessed 13 July 2025
- ^ "Doreen Pugh obituary: Devoted secretary to Winston Churchill who spent ten years working for the former prime minister and guarded his legacy", The Times, 26 July 2021 (subscription required)
- ^ "Joan Bright Astley" (obituary) The Daily Telegraph, 2 January 2009 (subscription required)
- ^ "Obituary: Dame Anne Griffiths", The Times, 26 May 2017