Educator. Born at 41 Bishopsgate Street in London, she was educated at home and in Paris at Miss Bray's School, until the revolution of 1848 caused the school to close down. In 1849, she became the mathematics tutor at Queen's College in Harley Street and, the following year, became the head teacher of the Clergy Daughters' School in Casterton, Westmoreland. The following June, she was chosen (out of fifty candidates) as the principal of the Cheltenham Ladies' College in Gloucestershire. This had opened two years earlier as the first preparatory girls' school in England; but, at the time of her appointment, there were 69 pupils, and only £400 of the original £2,000 capital remained. She remained in charge of the school until her death, by which time there were 1,000 pupils and 120 teachers, and the financial situation was far healthier. At about this time, she became the Vice President of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage. In 1885, she founded St. Hilda's College in Cheltenham, the first residential training college in England for women teachers; and, in 1893, founded St. Hilda's Hall of Residence (now St. Hilda's College) in Oxford. The following year, she succeeded her friend, Frances Buss, as the second President of the Association of Headmistresses. Neither of these ladies ever married, nor do they seem ever to have had any romantic attachments, hence the rhyme: "Miss Buss and Miss Beale, Cupid's darts do not feel. How different from us, Miss Beale and Miss Buss." A biography of the two, "How Different From Us", by Josephine Kamm, was published in 1958. Miss Beale died in a nursing home in Cheltenham, following an operation for cancer. She was cremated at Perry Bar in Birmingham, and her ashes are buried beneath a small plaque in the South side of the Lady Chapel. Another plaque is on the wall nearby.