Ethel McNeile

Ethel Rhoda McNeile (18 October 1875 – 20 May 1922) was a British missionary and headmistress.

Life McNeile was born in London in 1875. Her parents were Mary Rosa Lush and the Reverend Hector M‘Neile (1843–1922), a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge (1865–1871), the vicar of Bredbury, Cheshire, a missionary of the Church Missionary Society in Bombay and vicar of Bishop's Sutton, Hampshire (1907–1922). Three of her siblings, the Reverend Robert Fergus M‘Neile, Annie Hilda M‘Neile and Jessie Margaret M‘Neile, served as missionaries in Egypt and Palestine also for the Church Missionary Society. persuaded her to rejoin Christianity. McNeile's writing about her conversion from Theosophy was later described as an "exposure" by the CMS. In 1912 the Church Missionary Society opened a sister school to St. John's College, Agra for girls in Agra and McNeile was the founding head of school. She had persuaded the CMS and the Zenana Bible and Medical Missionary Society that schools for girls in India should aspire to rival British public schools. It was difficult to find recruits and she would hold "purdah" parties where she could persuade mothers that their daughters should be educated. McNeile refused to enter a lifeboat because of the lack of capacity,