Maria Byerley

Maria Byerley (1787 – 2 April 1843) was a British schoolmistress in Warwick and Stratford upon Avon. The school for girls she co-founded with her sister Frances Parkes had several notable pupils.

Life She was the daughter of Thomas Byerley of Etruria, Staffordshire, a nephew by marriage and sometime partner and manager of the pottery works of Josiah Wedgwood. Her father had successfully run the London showroom but Josiah Wedgwood had managed the money.

When their uncle Josiah died in 1795 the business ceased to thrive, Maria Byerley, and her sister Frances, started a school to provide for their own upkeep. The school in Warwick was financed initially using Wedgwood bequests and a further loan from the Wedgwood family. the American granddaughters of Joseph Priestley, the Scottish artist's model and wife of John Everett Millais, Effie Gray and the niece of Harriet Martineau.

Byerley died in London in 1843 of pneumonia.