Annie Lund 1874-1950: a sound teaching career after early tragedy
Read about Annie Lund who forged a stable teaching career at the Salt High School for Girls during an era when professional opportunities for women were scarce.
Early days
Annie Lund lost her father, Thomas Lund, a farmer, in a shooting accident in Brafferton in North Yorkshire 1879 when she was five. (Tadcaster Post, 20th and 27th Feb. 1879.). After this his widow and her family of at least seven children appear on the 1881 census as living at 7 Apsley Villas in Manningham, Bradford.
In the 1891 census they have moved to 21 Blenheim Road, and the youngest daughter, Ethel, has rejoined the family. At the time of the 1881 census she was visiting relations. They were living in an area of Bradford, where their neighbours seem to be in lower middle class occupations.
No previous link of the family to the Bradford area has yet been traced.
Education at the Salt High School for Girls
Jane, the mother of the family, was living on annuities and in 1886 was able to send first of all, daughter, Annie, to the Salt High School for Girls. This was a fee paying school with a high standard of education. Annie’s sister Ethel is also listed in the school records, so the family was paying two sets of fees.
The school entered the girls for examinations in connection with the Science and Art Department in South Kensington. The results were published in the Shipley Times, 1887 to 1892. Annie was not among the top high fliers in the top division, but over the years was in the second class for subjects such as the study of physiography (the study of physical geography), maths, freehand drawing, and arithmetic.
Appointment as a teacher
Annie remained a pupil until 1893, when she was appointed as a teacher. The Staff register, held in the Saltaire Collection, shows her date of appointment and that she was originally responsible for history in the lower school, nature work and needlework in the lower and middle school. x`A later entry shows that she also taught arithmetic in September 1920.
She was appointed as a teacher without taking any of the teaching qualifications that were becoming available then. Her results in examinations had been adequate, not brilliant. There were probably other scholars in the year who would have been more academically gifted, but perhaps Annie had some special qualities which appealed to the selectors.
Salary scales
Annie’s salary scales are recorded in the Staff Register. She started at £90 a year in 1893; £96 a year in September 1910; £102 a year in September 1911; £108 a year in 1914; £185 a year in September 1919; £315 a year from 1 September 1921.
Life in the family homes and career progression
From this point she continued to live with the family at Blenheim Road. Her mother died in 1919, and after that she went to live with a niece and nephew in Undercliffe in Bradford.
Although this appears to be an unexciting life and career, for the time it was very significant that a woman could be sure of a settled salary with set increases.
Earlier in the century unmarried daughters were left with few, if any, opportunities of earning their own living, which became specially important after the death of a father. The usual resort was to take a post as a governess, and this was not well paid, and usually meant leaving the family home.
Annie’s steady progress was not as striking as the lives of her contemporaries who went on to be the heads of colleges, but it showed the opening of opportunities for the more average pupils.
Retirement and death
Annie finally retired in December 1933. If there were any presentations to her they were not recorded in the local press.
She died in December 1950, leaving £7,800 (about £240,000 in 2026), so her teaching career had meant she could accumulate capital of her own.
Pauline Ford July 2026
Discover more working women associated with Saltaire
Annie appears in our online exhibition of Working women of Saltaire
Acknowledgements
Thanks to British Newspaper Archive.
Thanks to local historian, Colin Coates, for his biographical timeline of Annie Lund.