Part One: From 1918-1928.

Australians who studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics in England

Seven Australian women completed the three-year course at the London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics (LSDE) between 1917 and 1927. Five of the Australians returned to their home State and commenced teaching, typically at independent girls' schools and in private classes. Several obtained positions at Kindergarten Training Colleges (KTC) in their home States.



Irene Wittenoom
Western Australian Irene Wittenoom (1893-1963), studied in London from 1915, graduated in 1917, and commenced a five year involvement with the WA Kindergarten Teachers' College in 1918 which thus became the first tertiary institution in Australasia to offer Dalcroze Eurhythmics. She also taught privately, and as a visiting teacher at several Perth schools. Notably she also influenced a number of WA school teachers, particularly those involved with physical education. Wittenoom married (Mrs F.Heron) and moved to Singapore in 1924.



Heather Gell
Heather Gell (1896-1988), graduated from Adelaide KTC in 1916 when Lillian de Lissa was Principal.  De Lissa had made an extensive journey to Europe and England in 1914, taken a course in Italy with Maria Montessori, observed the teaching at the Hellerau College of Jaques-Dalcroze and been impressed by the new Dalcroze Eurhythmics School in London. After coaching from Wittenoom in Perth for six weeks in 1920, Gell went to the LSDE in late 1921 and graduated in July 1923, with excellent results. She returned to Adelaide and began classes for children and adults in 1924. Gell taught there until 1938 when she moved to Sydney from where she broadcast, for some twenty years, regular Music Through Movement sessions to schools, for the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). In Sydney she established classes for children and adults and, in 1956, having been granted the Diploma of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, officially opened the first Dalcroze training School in Australia which she titled the Australian National School of Music and Movement. A number of her students qualified and in turn became the 'next generation' of Dalcroze teachers in Australia. Heather Gell was awarded an MBE for her services to music education. In her eighties she returned to live in Adelaide where she had the pleasure of seeing teachers continuing the music through movement work she had introduced to them.

Gell's book Music, Movement and the Young Child was published in 1949, and has been long out of print. One of her students edited and reprinted much of the content with the assistance of the 'Heather Gell Dalcroze Foundation'. Dalcroze Eurhythmics: hundreds of lessons and thousands of ideas for early childhood, by.master teacher, Heather Gell.  Edited and annotated by Joan Pope.(2006) Available from the Secretary of Dalcroze Australia: carolannnbentley@bigpond.com Approximate price $50 plus relevant postage (please enquire for current rates).

Cecilia John
Tasmanian born Cecilia John (1877-1955), was a singer and singing teacher in Melbourne in the 1900s and well-known as a suffragette, political activist, anti-conscriptionist and campaigner for womens'and childrens' rights. John was the first secretary of the Save the Children Fund in Australia in 1919, and later, from London, became the Overseas Director of the organization. After attending the International Womens' Peace Conference in Switzerland in 1919, one of three Australian delegates, John commenced studies at the LSDE the following year and joined the Executive Committee of the Dalcroze Society of Great Britain in 1923, her graduation year. She made two trips to Australia in connection with Dalcroze demonstrations and the awarding of scholarships sponsored by the LSDE. She returned to work in England and became Warden of the LSDE in 1930, and Principal in 1932, a position she retained until her death in 1955.

Ethel Driver
In 1923-1924 Ethel Driver, (1883-1963), Mistress of Method at the LSDE, presented lecture-demonstrations in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney and Christchurch, New Zealand, as part of a six-month promotional tour of Australasia. Dalcroze Societies were enthusiastically formed to support the work in Western Australia (1923), South Australia (1924) Victoria (1924) and New South Wales (1924). Considerable publicity and fund-raising and the offer of scholarships from the London School, led to four Australians going to London in mid 1924 as a result.

Dorothea Michel
NSW physical education teacher Dorothea Michel (1901-unknown) received a three-year scholarship and completed the course at the LSDE in 1927, but married after her graduation (Mrs Johnson) and stayed in England. This was a disappointment for the NSW Dalcroze Society.

Jean Wilson
A half-scholarship was awarded to Jean Wilson, (1904-1992) a Kindergarten College student of Perth. She qualified in 1927 and returned to WA, teaching privately and at the KTC before marrying (Mrs R.H.Vincent). With Dorothy Fleming, she created and presented music, movement and story broadcasts to schools in the early 1940s, and played an important part in the development of Kindergarten of the Air. She continued broadcasting until 1969.

Thelma St John George
Thelma St John George (1899-1970) and Elizabeth Demaine, (1897-unknown) both primary school teachers from Melbourne also travelled to the LSDE in 1924. Demaine married and stayed overseas, St John George returned to Melbourne and taught privately, and collaboratively, with ballet teacher Eunice Weston, speech teacher Eileen O'Keefe, at Preshil school in Melbourne and also at Geelong Girls Grammar. She married (Mrs A. Lacey) and retired to live in country Victoria.

Marjorie Bonnin
South Australian Marjorie Bonnin (1905-1990) joined the other Australian women in London in 1926, replacing Elizabeth Demaine who had left the course. Bonnin was a student of Heather Gell's a promising pianist interested in improvisation and composition. Upon her return in late 1927, with the Dalcroze qualification, and also the new LRAM for Aural Culture and Musical Appreciation. She joined Gell's thriving studio practice in Adelaide for some years, but later withdrew and concentrated on private piano teaching.

Ella Gormley
Originally from New Zealand Ella Gormley was a senior physical education teacher from NSW who in 1919-1920 requested leave to pursue a Masters degree in Physical Education from Columbia University New York. Whilst there she attended the Dalcroze School of New York and was most impressed. She did not have time to complete a certificated course but was greatly influenced by the work, and requested further time from her employer, the Board of Public Instruction in Sydney, to also visit the London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Here too she realized that the length of the full course would be impossible for her to achieve. In 1921 on her return to Sydney, she gave a number of intensive courses for fellow teachers, including a special six week course for senior interstate physical education instructresses, and devised new curriculum material in folk dance, rhythmic movement, gymnastics and swimming. Due to the lack of official recognition in regard to an appropriate salary commensurate with her level of work Gormley resigned and married.

With little organizational support, and few opportunities to visit each other in the 1920s and early 30s, these few women imparted their knowledge with enthusiasm, engaged in demonstrations, which served as powerful advertisements for their rhythmic movement classes for children and amateur adults. Contemporary readers should realise a time-perspective here by noting that Perth was not linked by rail service to Adelaide until 1917, that radio services only began in 1924 on a local basis; it was not possible to make long distance phone calls East -West, until the late 1930s, that airmail letters were still rare, and expensive, in the 1930s.

Jaques-Dalcroze had stipulated that a teacher-training course in his method required at least three members of staff to possess the higher Diplôme, not the basic certificate of graduation as a teacher. This was to prove an almost insuperable difficulty for countries distant from Europe. None of the Australian graduates held this qualification.