Lucy Mary Silcox (1862–1947), teacher and headmistress, and pupil of F. M. Alexander
Life
Silcox took an M.A. in London and the Classical Tripos at Newnham College, Cambridge. She was Headmistress of East Liverpool High School in 1901 and of Dulwich High School from 1901 to 1908. In 1909 she became Headmistress of St. Felix School, Southwold, a girls’ boarding school founded in 1897. She oversaw the construction of several new buildings and the purchase of many acres of land for playing fields and buildings. Her time at St. Felix has been described as a golden age for the school. Silcox was a vegetarian and a strong supporter of women’s suffrage. She retired to Oxford in 1926. As well as referring to Alexander in her lecture to the Ling Association (see below), Silcox co-signed (with Esther Lawrence and A. G. Pite) a letter in 1930 supporting Alexander’s training course which was published in UoS.[1] Silcox arranged for Ethel Webb to teach at St. Felix School, which she did a few times. It was in this connection that Alexander advised Ethel Webb: ‘Don’t do anything you have seen me do.’[2]
Writings
Silcox’s lecture to the Ling Association, published in 1927, was titled ‘Swedish Gymnastic Teaching – Some Comments by an Onlooker after long Observation.’[3] She describes Alexander’s technique, quoting Magnus’s discovery that
posture is an active process, that the position of the head determines the disposition of the rest of the body as well as the tone of the musculature throughout the whole body.[4]
She ends the lecture by recommending her audience to read CCC. An extract from the lecture was quoted in UCL, and the lecture was published in full in A Means To An End.[5]
Fig. 1. Mary Silcox.
