{{Short description|New Zealand educator (1903–1991)}} {{Use New Zealand English|date=September 2024}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Beatrice Beeby | birth_name = Beatrice Eleanor Newnham | birth_date = 1903 | birth_place = New Zealand | death_date = {{death date and age|1991|12|20|1903|df=y}} | death_place = Lower Hutt, New Zealand | spouse = {{marriage|Clarence Beeby|1926}} | children = Christopher | occupation = Educator }}
'''Beatrice Eleanor Beeby''' ({{née|'''Newnham'''}}; 1903 – 20 December 1991) was a New Zealand educator. She was key figure in the establishment of the nursery playcentre movement in New Zealand, which developed into the present-day Playcentre organisation.
== Early years == Beeby was born Beatrice Eleanor Newnham. Her father was a newspaper editor in Timaru, and her mother a schoolteacher.{{cn|date=December 2021}}
She met Clarence Beeby while they were students at Christchurch Teachers' Training College.<ref name="Clarence Beeby">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Beeby, Clarence Edward |encyclopedia=Dictionary of New Zealand Biography |date=5 June 2013 |publisher=Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand |last1=Renwick |first1=William |url=http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/biographies/5b17/beeby-clarence-edward |accessdate=3 November 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Blaikie|first1=Jane|title=Beeb and us|journal=Sport|location=Wellington, N.Z.|year=2015|volume=43|pages=143–153}}</ref> Beeby and Clarence were interested in drama and were foundation members of the Canterbury University College Drama Club.<ref name=":0" /> Beeby acted in and directed the drama club's productions.<ref name=":0" /> Beeby and Clarence studied Education under James Shelley, a newly arrived lecturer from England, and his ideas influenced them.<ref name="Clarence Beeby" />
Beeby passed her teaching examination in 1922<ref>{{cite news|title=Teachers' Examinations: Canterbury and West Coast Results|url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=CHP19220302.2.29|accessdate=3 November 2015|work=The Press|issue=17393|date=2 March 1922|page=5|quote=List III: Obtained Partial Pass for Class D...Newnham, Beatrice Eleanor, Christchurch.}}</ref> and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Canterbury College in 1924.<ref>{{Cite web|title = NZ University Graduates 1870–1961|url = http://shadowsoftime.co.nz/university18.html|website = Shadows of Time|accessdate = 3 November 2015}}</ref> Beeby and Clarence were engaged that year, and Clarence moved to Manchester, England to study his doctoral degree. Beatrice did some teaching in Christchurch and followed later on, and they married in Manchester on 3 June 1926.<ref name=":0" /> Beeby worked as a teacher of special needs students until she became pregnant and returned to New Zealand. Their first child, Helen, was born in 1927 in Christchurch,<ref name=":0" /> six weeks after Clarence returned from England.{{cn|date=December 2021}}
While raising her young family in Christchurch, Beeby continued her interest in drama and joined the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society, which Shelley had founded in 1928. She directed and appeared in plays the group produced.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite news|title=One-Act Plays: Repertory Theatre Society|url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=CHP19291126.2.142|accessdate=3 November 2015|work=The Press|issue=19786|date=26 November 1929|page=15|quote=By way of contrast tragedy intervenes in the next play, "Legend," written by Philip Johnson and produced by Mrs C. K. Beeby, who also plays the tragic role...which Beatrice Beeby interprets so aptly.}}</ref>
In 1932, Clarence and Beeby, together with some of Clarence's university students, set up a free play centre five mornings a week, with the goal of observing the behaviour of 5-year-old children for Clarence's research.<ref name=":0" />
In 1934, the family moved to Wellington, where they settled in Karori. Clarence took up a new position at NZCER, the New Zealand Council for Educational Research.<ref name="Clarence Beeby" />
Their second child, Christopher, was born in 1935.<ref>{{Cite book|title = WTO Appellate Body Repertory of Reports and Awards: 1995–2010|author1 = Appellate Body Secretariat |publisher = Cambridge University Press|date = April 2011|isbn = 9781107008205|location = New York|page = 1174|edition = 4th}}</ref>
== Public life == With Joan Wood and Inge Smithells, Beeby established the first nursery playcentres in the early 1940s, precursor to the present-day Playcentre organisation.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Education – Children and adolescents, 1930–1960 |website = NZHistory, New Zealand history online|url = https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/children-and-adolescents-1940-60/education|publisher = Ministry for Culture and Heritage|date = 20 December 2012|access-date = 3 November 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|title = Wood, Joan Myrtle|url = http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5w47/wood-joan-myrtle|encyclopedia=Dictionary of New Zealand Biography |date=30 October 2012 |publisher=Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand |last1=Stace |first1=Hilary |accessdate=3 November 2015 }}</ref> The aim of the playcentres was to give mothers some relief from single parenting while their husbands were absent fighting in World War II.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title = To the Fullest Extent of His Powers: C.E. Beeby's Life in Education|last = Alcorn|first = Noeline|publisher = Victoria University Press|date = 1999|isbn = 9780864733535|location = Wellington, New Zealand|page = 153 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MfrO3EvD6tsC}}</ref> Two groups were initially established in Karori and Kelburn.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Women Together: A History of Women's Organisations in New Zealand|editor1-last = Else|editor1-first = Anne|publisher = Historical Branch, Department of Internal Affairs|date = 1993|isbn = 0908896298|location = Wellington, New Zealand|pages = 342–344}}</ref> On 22 July 1941 the inaugural meeting was held at Wood's home, and the thirteen women who attended agreed to establish a playcentre association. Beeby was elected first President, Wood Recording Secretary and Smithells Organising Secretary. All three women were anxious to be independent but benefited from the connections of their husbands, who were influential in the education field. Clarence, for example, printed the group's pamphlets free of charge at his office.<ref name=":0" /> Beeby's knowledge of the funding system also enabled her to successfully apply for a grant from the New Education Fellowship in 1937,<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Abbiss|first1=Jane|title=The 'New Zealand Fellowship' in New Zealand: It's [''sic''] Activity and Influence in the 1930s and 1940s|journal=New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies|year=1998|volume=33|issue=1|pages=81–93|hdl=10092/496|quote=Surplus funds from the 1937 Conference were used to supply grants to the Wellington and Christchurch playcentres}}</ref> and she attended their conference in 1944 as a representative of the nursery playcentre organisation.{{cn|date=December 2021}}
The ideas of the nursery playcentre proved popular, and by December 1946 playcentres operated in Auckland, Christchurch and Palmerston North.<ref name="Wellington Playcentre Association">{{Cite web|title = Wellington Playcentre Association|url = http://wellingtonplaycentre.org.nz/index.php/general/about-wellington-playcentre-association-mainmenu-91.html|website = Wellington Playcentre Association|accessdate = 3 November 2015|archive-date = 21 January 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200121051432/http://wellingtonplaycentre.org.nz/index.php/general/about-wellington-playcentre-association-mainmenu-91.html|url-status = dead}}</ref> The New Zealand Nursery Play Centre Federation had its first meeting in May 1948.<ref name="Wellington Playcentre Association"/>
Beeby's life from the 1950s involved accompanying her husband on his international career as a diplomat to France and an educational consultant in the United States and Indonesia.<ref name=":0" /> After returning to Wellington, Beeby fell ill and required hospital care for many years. She died in Hutt Hospital on 20 December 1991 of pneumonia.<ref>Alcorn, p. 338</ref>
== References == {{Reflist|30em}}
== External links == * [http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/155/clarence-edward-beeby-and-his-wife-beatrice Photograph of Beatrice and Clarence Beeby] * [http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23207871 Photograph of Beatrice and Clarence Beeby and their two children]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beeby, Beatrice}} Category:20th-century New Zealand educators Category:1903 births Category:1991 deaths Category:People from Timaru Category:University of Canterbury alumni Category:Deaths from pneumonia in New Zealand Category:New Zealand theatre directors Category:New Zealand women theatre directors Category:New Zealand stage actresses Category:New Zealand educational theorists Category:20th-century educational theorists Category:20th-century New Zealand women educators {{Authority control}}