Wooler, Margaret (1792–1885):

Margaret Wooler was the headmistress at Roe Head, where Charlotte was first a pupil and later a teacher. She was the daughter of a prosperous maltster and part of a large family with strong and lasting bonds. Charlotte’s time as pupil at the school was unusually happy: there was a small core of other pupils, among whom she found two lifelong friends, and Miss Wooler was cultivated, something of a linguist, and presented an attractive front to her pupils, with her beautiful voice and her story-telling abilities, exercised especially during the evening, when she would walk up and down the large rooms of the house with favored pupils around her to converse with. The syllabus of the school seems conventional, but it was broader than that of most good boys’ schools of the time, where classics dominated. Margaret Wooler seems to have been not the flamboyant, personality-impressing kind of teacher, but genuinely one of those for whom “education is a leading out” (Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1961, where Miss Brodie is a poor example of her principle). Her personality was retiring, quietly impressive, and her moral judgment was something that Charlotte would always want to take into consideration. Later on the relationship went through some bad patches, notably when Charlotte was teaching at Roe Head and was herself going through crises both religious and personal. 

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