Spring Gardens Teacher Training College

Spring Gardens Teacher Training College which initially was named The Female Teachers' Training School was one of the earliest normal schools in the Caribbean region. Located in Antigua it was opened as an informal women's training school in 1840, by Bishop George Westerby of the Moravian Church. The private school's goal was to train Caribbean women to teach other Caribbean women. It operated for 118 years, until 1958, and was the longest-lived training institution founded by missionaries in the region.

The Female Teachers' Training School opened in Lebanon, Antigua in 1840 at the home of Moravian Bishop George Westerby as an exclusively female training academy providing an education for five girls who wanted to become teachers. The missionary goal to prepare women to be good wives and mothers for the male teachers expanded to train women to be teachers themselves. Westerby and his wife's success with their initial trainees, led them to seek "black and coloured" girls between the ages of ten and fifteen to be trained to teach others about cleanliness, industry and order. Students were boarded and provided with clothing and lodging, as well as training.

The school was one of the earliest educational organizations in the region and was moved to Spring Gardens, when it was officially organized in 1854. It offered classroom instruction along with industrial education and manual work and was geared to training teachers who would be able to instruct others to learn a trade. The school was a Moravian institution and received very little financial support from the government. The intent of the organization was to train women, who were indigenous to the region, to teach students throughout the Caribbean. The class of 1855 included ten pupils, which increased to sixteen students by 1858. Westerby retired in 1873 and was replaced by Reverend Romig. In 1887, the school had the largest enrollment of any school in the region, though attendance was often half of enrollment, in the Leeward Islands. In the period between 1840 and 1891, 161 students had graduated.

For the first thirty-eight years of the school's existence, the majority of its funding came from the Mission Board in Germany, but in 1892, the Government of the Leeward Islands agreed to pay for the education of eight girls for a cost of £25 annually. The contract effectively meant that the school had to meet government standards with regard to curricula, staffing, and student make-up, expanding the citizenship and religious affiliation of the students. Around the same time, the Government of Barbados extended scholarships as well. Until 1894, the director of the school was always an ordained minister who reported to the German Mission Board. Other staff consisted of a principal and a female full-time tutor, who also served as house matron. Staff was traditionally secured in England until 1892, when for the first time teachers trained locally were secured as instructors.

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