A statue of Margaret Bancroft resides at the heart of the new campus of the Bancroft School in Mount Laurel, overlooking the open grass area peacefully and proudly of what has become of the school she had established in 1883 that started with a single student.
Margaret Bancroft (1854-1912) was born and raised in Philadelphia in a Quaker family. In 1883, at 29 years old, she left her teaching position in Philadelphia to establish the first private boarding school in the United States for multiply disabled children, “The Haddonfield School for the Mentally Deficient and Peculiarly Backward,” in Haddonfield. In the 19th century, developmentally disabled children could not attend regular schools, and there were no educational programs for them. Bancroft believed in equal education for all children and that with the right academic programs and a social-emotional environment, those children would nourish, develop, and thrive; she created a place and developed innovative methods to educate them. Over the years, the school grew into a nonprofit institution known as the Bancroft School.
Bancroft was also one of the founders of the women’s club the Haddon Fortnightly in 1894. Until this day, the club is active.
Judith Flicker created the statue. It stood at the entrance of Lullworth Hall in Kings Highway East, Haddonfield; when the school moved to its new campus at Mount Laurel, Bancroft’s statue moved with it.
The statue depicts Bancroft sitting on a stool, confident and proud. A small child leans over her lap.
There is ongoing fundraising to erect a copy of this statue in Haddonfield to commemorate her legacy in the same place she founded the school.
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