Allenswood Boarding Academy

Allenswood Boarding Academy was an exclusive girls' boarding school founded in Wimbledon, London by Marie Souvestre in 1870 and operated until the early 1950s, when it was demolished and replaced with a housing development.

Allenswood House was located on a large tract of land between Albert Drive and Wimbledon Park Road, in Southfields in the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It was owned by Henry Hansler and was built in the Tudor Revival style between 1865 and 1870. The house was converted in 1870 by Marie Souvestre and her partner, Paolina Samaïa, into a boarding school for girls. The school, whose students were primarily from the European aristocracy and American upper-class, provided a progressive education to its students. Often called a finishing school, Allenswood had a curriculum that included serious study at a time when education was denied to women, and stressed feminist ideals of social responsibility and personal independence. In addition to learning French, which was the official language spoken at the school, students studied the arts, dance, history, language , literature, music, and philosophy and were required to develop their own analytical skills to assess ideals and challenges.

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