By Mark McNeil
Hamilton school board archive administrators are celebrating the acquisition of a 142-year-old artifact from the city’s educational history, recently discovered in northern Alberta. The ornate, black-painted desk, adorned with carved yellow butterfly designs and other symbols, was a gift to the pioneering educator Susan Bennetto from her students in the early 1880s.
Bennetto is a well-known name in Hamilton because of Bennetto Elementary School on Simcoe Street, Bennetto Community Centre on Hughson and the annual Bennetto Award for history students. But much less familiar to Hamiltonians is the story behind the name due to the passage of time. Susan Bennetto (1850-1919) was a revered educator who made local history in 1888 by becoming the first female school principal in the city.
Ben Dyment’ of the Hamilton-Wentworth School Board Educational Archives, says, “We were contacted by someone in Alberta by email in November who said ‘there is something here you might want in your collection.’” The desk was in High Prairie, Alta., 370 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, and was part of an inventory for an online auction run by Big Meadow Auction Services Ltd. The antique was notable because it had a silver nameplate that read:
Miss S. Bennetto
From her boys and girls
Hamilton Ont
Jany 1883
But what remains unclear is how the antique ended up in rural Alberta. “The general assumption in the various biographies is that she moved to Winnipeg to live with her brother Israel Jr. for a few years, following their mother’s death in the 1880s.” says Dyment. Susan Bennetto never married and had no children. The desk was a going away present from her students. Perhaps, Dyment says, she took the desk with her, and it later changed hands, eventually resurfacing in Alberta. The other possibility is the desk was shipped out west from Hamilton to a family member after Bennetto died, or it was sold outside the family at that point.
Whatever happened, the desk had long been forgotten in Hamilton, and its existence was a surprise to people who work at the educational archives at the Hill Park Learning Centre on East 16th Street. A $698 bid, pieced together from the archives’ budget, was enough to secure the desk in the online auction. A relative of Bennetto, retired stockbroker Murray Weaver, donated $500 for a shipping crate and transportation charges to bring the desk back to Hamilton. Weaver says he was glad to make the contribution. “Susan Bennetto by all accounts was an extraordinary human being. She was way ahead of her time. For a woman to raise herself to become a principal in the 1800s was unheard of,” he says. Weaver’s mother’s maiden name was Bennetto, and he recalls her often praising Susan. “My mother would say that Susan was very dedicated to her profession and very dedicated to her students. And she was known as someone who could control a classroom.”
The archives, which is managed by retired educator Hal Hilgren, collects and displays historical items from both the Hamilton Board of Education and the Wentworth County Board of Education that amalgamated in 1998. The archival collection is touted as being the most extensive of its kind in Canada. It can be viewed by appointment.
Susan Bennetto was born in London, England, the daughter of Israel, a carpenter, and Philadelphia, a seamstress. When she was a young girl in the mid-1850s, the family immigrated to Hamilton, living on Henry Street which later became Cannon Street. Susan was an excellent student and went on to gain a first-class teaching certificate. With an annual salary of $200, she first taught in a two-room frame school on Cannon Street East. Later she moved to Central School on Hunter Street West and eventually she ended up teaching at Victoria school in the early 1880s.
After returning to Hamilton from Winnipeg, she applied for a job opening as “head teacher” – as the position of principal was known – at a school being built at Picton and Catharine streets. Undeterred by the fact that no woman in the city had held such a post before, she landed the job and started working at the school in 1888. It did not take long for her to make her mark.
According to the Spectator, she had “a great gift of imparting knowledge” and was “a strict disciplinarian who could win and hold the esteem and respect of all who were ever her pupils.” “As she made her way down Mary Street … she waved to her students as well as to those who attended St. Lawrence Roman Catholic School nearby. Early each day, she made the rounds of the rooms, saying good morning to every class.”
A ceremony in June 1917 to celebrate her 50th year in teaching brought out numerous former students. “Those in attendance were a veritable Who’s Who of prominent Hamilton Citizens. She is purported to have taught five mayors of the city,” says the article that was authored by Lois Evans.
In ill health in the final years of her life, Bennetto died on Oct. 21, 1919. An obituary in The Spectator quoted a board inspector as saying: “She was a teacher who loved her profession and cherished for it the very highest ideals. No one could have been more conscientious and faithful in the discharge of duty.” Another said: “She could do anything with children, and they would do anything for her.”
By 1920, a 10-room addition was added to the Picton Street school and the expanded building was renamed in her honour. In 1965, the school burned down and a new school was constructed to replace it. That building was closed in 2002, and today the current Bennetto School combines the former Centennial School, Bennetto Middle School, and Robert Land School.
Originally published in the Hamilton Spectator. Used by permission of the author.
