Ruback's Tailors
131 Northdown Road
Mansfield House
Harold Road
Jewish girls' education, Orthodox life, and independence on Harold Road.
Researched and Written by Katie Blythe
Mansfield House College for Young Ladies​
In the early years of the 20th century, a pair of determined Jewish women created something remarkable on the Kent coast: a school that combined the refinement of English boarding education with the moral and cultural values of Jewish life.
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Mansfield House College for Young Ladies, later known as Mansfield College, stood proudly on Harold Road in Cliftonville, Margate, a stone’s throw from the English Channel. It was both genteel and radical; a space where middle-class Jewish girls could study music, languages, and science under Orthodox supervision, and where two women made an independent living in an era when few could.
1905 advert for Mansfield College - Jewish Chronicle 1905-03-17 p43
The First Prospectus​
The story begins with Mrs Blanche Poole, a London divorcee who, by 1902, ran a “superior boarding house” in St John’s Wood. For single, widowed, or divorced women, such work offered rare financial independence; for Jewish women, it also served a niche market for kosher lodging.
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By 1903, Poole had taken a seasonal house in Cliftonville, offering “high-class cuisine” and “separate tables.” The venture thrived, and a year later, she partnered with Miss Maude Levy, a London schoolmistress, to found Mansfield College for Jewish Young Ladies on the corner of Eastern Esplanade and Harold Road.
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Poole brought business sense and maternal care; Levy added intellect and teaching skill. Their school, advertised in the Jewish Chronicle in 1904, promised “a complete education” in Hebrew, modern languages, music, art, bookkeeping, and domestic crafts, the first Jewish girls’ boarding school outside London.
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Within two years, they moved to larger premises on Harold Road, transforming Mansfield into a landmark of Anglo-Jewish education, combining the polish of a finishing school with the rigour of a modern academy.
1913 Mansfield College on Harold Road
The Timetable​
The 1911 census presents a vivid picture: Nos. 23 and 27 Harold Road housed 68 girls aged six to eighteen, taught by governesses from France, Germany, and London, supported by nurses, matrons, and maids. The atmosphere was orderly yet homely, a model of the refined Jewish household.
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Days began with prayers and breakfast, then lessons in English, French, and music. Afternoons brought drawing, sewing, or garden exercise; Fridays ended with candlelight, song, and a kosher Shabbat meal.
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Mansfield’s hallmark was its academic ambition. Pupils sat exams for the Royal Academy and College of Music, the College of Preceptors, and the Oxford and Cambridge Locals. Each year, the Jewish Chronicle listed dozens of distinctions in music, languages, and art, credentials that turned middle-class Jewish daughters into educated, respectable women.
Piano Scales & Penny Boxes​
Music was central to school life. Under resident instructor Fräulein Rela van Messel, pupils became skilled pianists and singers; the Jewish Chronicle credited her with “all musical successes during the past three years” in 1908. Piano and violin practice filled the air from morning to evening.
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Mansfield was also a moral community. Pupils regularly wrote to “Auntie”, the editor of the Young Israel page in the Jewish Chronicle, sending money raised through fines: “a penny for every act of disobedience.” These campaigns supported children’s charities, channelling their self-discipline into community fundraising.
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Firmly Orthodox but never rigid, the school ran its own services. When criticised in 1914 for not sending its girls to divine service at the Margate synagogue, Poole and Levy replied that they held their own on-site: “hygienic, adequate, and suited to young girls.” It was a model of faith under female authority.
Under The Footlights​
Life at Mansfield was not all study. The school regularly staged concerts and charity entertainments in Cliftonville Hall or the Hydro Hotel’s ballroom. In 1906, the pupils performed George Robert Sims’s A Dress Rehearsal, raising money for the Mayor’s Unemployment Fund.
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The productions became annual fixtures. By 1914, the local paper described “a pleasing entertainment” of choral and instrumental pieces, closing with floral tributes from pupils to their principals. The applause, it seems, was not just for its pupils' musical skill but for the ideal the school represented: cultured, charitable, yet distinctively Jewish.
The Hydro Hotel on Eastern Esplanade, where the Mansfield pupils held fundraising events for local charities. © Margate Local History
A Women’s Enterprise​
For Blanche Poole and Maude Levy, Mansfield House was more than a school; it was an assertion of female autonomy. In an age when married women’s property legally belonged to their husbands, running a boarding establishment allowed women to earn income through their domestic skills. For Jewish women, some widowed, others, like Blanche Poole, unable to remarry because their husbands withheld a religious get, such work offered dignified survival.
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Poole and Levy embodied this independence. They advertised nationally, expanded their premises, employed other women, and built a reputation for both propriety and ambition. By 1910, they operated three connected houses, a private nursing wing, and a network of alumnae spanning Britain and abroad.
Term Interrupted​
The summer of 1915 brought disaster. During a German air raid, the first on Britain, bombs struck Cliftonville. One fell outside Brooklyn Lodge, near the school, killing Kate Cleopatra Bonny, the daughter of the Margate Hebrew Congregation’s honorary secretary, among the first civilian victims of aerial warfare.
The shock to the community was immense. For Mansfield College, it proved decisive. Parents withdrew their daughters, and the Thanet seaside experiment came to an end. In August, the Jewish Chronicle announced the dissolution of the partnership between Poole and Levy. Levy had just married Benjamin Wolinski, son of a rabbi from Sydney, and as a married woman, her property would pass to her husband. Poole, meanwhile, faced wartime decline and financial uncertainty.
By September, Mansfield had quietly relocated to 6 Madeira Park, Tunbridge Wells, advertised as a “high class day and boarding school for young ladies,” now “removed from Margate.” Within months, raids reached inland Kent, confirming Poole’s prudence.
Roll Call In Hove​
After the war, the school settled at 47 Cromwell Road, Hove, reopening in 1918 as the only Jewish girls’ boarding school of its kind in England. Blanche Poole remained principal until 1930, when she handed the reins to sisters Dr Nancie Hart and Mrs Enid Alfandary.
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Under their leadership, the new Mansfield House combined Orthodox observance with modern education. Dr Hart, a pathologist, enforced rigorous discipline, while Mrs Alfandary, a linguist and dancer, brought warmth and creativity.
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During the Second World War, the school was evacuated to North Wales, taking in Jewish refugee girls before returning to Hove in 1945. Former pupils recalled white uniforms, Shabbat candles, strict teachers, and enduring lessons in confidence and belonging.
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When Mansfield House closed in 1958, it left a six-decade legacy from Maida Vale and Cliftonville to Hove, reflecting the transformation of Anglo-Jewish life through education and resilience.
Closing The Register​
The story of Mansfield House is both a local curiosity and a chapter in Anglo-Jewish women’s history. It began as a collaboration between two women who used education to carve out autonomy, and endured through generations of teachers who believed in cultivating intellect and moral discipline, and moral strength among Jewish girls. In Cliftonville, it represented the optimism of an era when seaside air and self-improvement went hand in hand. Under the formidable management of Poole and Levy, it became a bridge between old-world Orthodoxy and modern professional life.
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Today, the College is gone, but the Harold Road building remains, alongside the exam records and the recorded memories of its schoolgirls who learned to play and pray beside the seaside.
© Katie Blythe 2026
Primary Sources & Further Reading​
Daily Mirror (London) (1912), “Situations Vacant.” Daily Mirror, 3 April, p. 6.
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Educational Times (London) (1916), “School Examination Notices.” Educational Times, 1 August, p. 30.
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Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate and Cheriton Herald (1913), “Young Strong Housemaid Required for Girls’ School.” 5 April, p. 12.
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General Register Office (1837–1915), England & Wales Civil Registration Marriage Index. Entry for Maude I. Levy and Benzion Wolinski, Hampstead registration district, September 1915.
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Harris, E. T. (2007), Anglo-Jewry’s Experience of Secondary Education from the 1830s until 1920. Doctoral thesis, University of London.
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Jewish Chronicle (1902–1915), Advertisements, examination results, school notices, charitable reports, editorials, correspondence, and legal notices relating to Mansfield House / Mansfield College, Cliftonville, Margate, including partnership dissolution notice (1915)..
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Jewish World (1907), Reports and advertisements relating to Mansfield House Ladies’ College, Cliftonville. Issues of 7 June and 22 November.
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Kent and Sussex Courier (1915), “Mansfield College Removed from Margate.” 24 September, p. 2.
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Kent Messenger and Gravesend Telegraph (1919), “Sale of Mansfield College Property.” 7 June, p. 6.
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Kentish Express (1909), “Thorough Housemaid Required.” 9 October, p. 12.
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Margate Local History (n.d.), “Harold Road Photographs (c. 1913).”
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Middleton, Judy (2022), “Mansfield House School, 47 Cromwell Road, Hove.” Hove in the Past.
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Morning Post (London) (1906), “Cook Wanted for Ladies’ College.” 2 January, p. 10.
“My Brighton and Hove” (n.d.), “Mansfield College, Hove.”
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Thanet Advertiser (1915), “Oxford Locals: Thanet Students’ Successes.” 28 August, p. 6.
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The National Archives (1903), Divorce record of Blanche Priscilla Poole and Eleazar Hayes Marcus Poole. Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes files, J 77/803/4424. Kew, Surrey.
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UK Census Records (1901; 1911), Household of Blanche Poole, 109 Abbey Road, Hampstead; Mansfield College, 23 and 27 Harold Road, Margate. Census returns including full household, staff, and pupil listings.