Margaret Byers, Trailblazing Educator for Girls

Lucy Domvile grew up knowing little about her great-great grandmother, the educationalist, suffragist and philanthropist Margaret Byers, except that she had founded Victoria College, the girls’ school in south Belfast which thrives to this day. Now, after much intensive research, she has a vivid sense of her trailblazing great-great grandmother and the very difficult circumstances that drove her to achieve so much.

In this illustrated talk, Lucy Domvile will tell the story of Margaret Byers, including sharing highlights from 34 private letters written to and from Margaret Byers and her family that she has inherited. They give glimpses into the life of the young woman from Rathfriland who took girls’ education in Ireland from embroidery to university level.

Photograph of Margaret Byers, (c) Victoria College, reproduced by kind permission of Victoria College.

Lucy Domvile first worked for the Danube Weekly, an English language publication in Vienna, from1983-4. Relocating to Ho Chi Minh City in the early 1990s, she worked as photographer, location coordinator and assistant producer for the BBC, but principally as a journalist for the Saigon Times, Vietnam Investment Review and Vietnam Economic Times.  While writing a large amount of brochures, websites and papers for businesses in Vietnam, she is principally known as the author of Morale from the Ministry, an illustrated book on North Vietnamese Propaganda Art from the so-called ‘Vietnam’ War. She now resides in Somerset, England.