Transnational Networking and Female Education: Loreto Convent Schooling, 1840–1910

This chapter examines the leadership styles and education impact of two women religious (nuns), Mother M. Teresa Ball and Mother M. Michael Corcoran, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mother Teresa Ball was foundress of the Irish branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Known as the Loreto institute, it founded schools and convents in many parts of the world, including Canada, India, Mauritius and Gibraltar. Mother Michael Corcoran was the fourth Superior General of the Loreto institute, and had a significant impact on improving its educational provision. The transnational networking strategies of these two women were very different: Ball had to make swift decisions, while remaining at a remove from the nuns she sent overseas. Though she never visited the international convents that she established, she was closely involved in their development. Corcoran was a ‘hands-on’ leader, with direct involvement in many aspects of Loreto education around the globe, and first-hand experience of many of their international schools. Her visitation to convents in India and Australia are central to this chapter, and show how she expanded the transnational reach of Loreto education. The chapter draws on archival collections in India, Australia, Ireland, and Canada, to create a compelling analysis of how two very different women marshalled the resources at their disposal, in order to develop a system of Loreto education that was transnational in its scope and ambition.