Jane Latham

Jane Leeke Latham (3 August 1867 – 5 August 1938) was a British headteacher at St Mary's School, Gerrards Cross and a missionary to India.

Life Latham was born in her grandparents' house at the large country house of Holbrook Hall near Belper in Derbyshire. She was the third of ten children and she and her elder siblings learned to be parents to their worker brothers and sisters.

St Mary's School (later College) had been founded in 1874 by Anglican sisters at Wantage but the finances had become precarious and in 1901 the college was relaunched by a new committee. The college's prime function was to train women to become secondary school teachers, and in 1903 Latham became the principal of both the college and the school. In 1904 the school passed its inspection and Latham was credited with much of the improvement. Her second career began that year when she became the "head of the women's work" in the mission at Ahmednagar. She was employed in this position for twenty years by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. St Monica's school in Ahmednagar was established and this was a school, but importantly it was a training ground for trainee teachers. Latham thought that the training was important not just because it provided the ability to educate. The training established women who were financially independent as Latham saw this as a way to establish a separate Indian Church.

Latham died in Canada Hospital in 1938 in Nashik from dysentery which she had caught the month before.