The national in the transnational

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to relate the compelling story of Viennese-born and educated Anna Marie Hlawaczek (c.1849–1893) and her employment as the second headmistress at Maitland Girls High School in the colony of New South Wales (NSW) from 1885 to 1887. Design/methodology/approach Through a biographical lens, this paper uses traditional documentary research mainly in the school administration files in the NSW State Archives to explore Hlawaczek’s experiences. Findings The first set of findings forms the narrative of Anna Hlawaczek’s troubled employment in the NSW teaching service at the beginnings of public girls’ secondary education. It shows the ways in which ethnicity, gender, career history and expectations worked on both sides to exacerbate the potential for misunderstanding between her and the all-male administrators of the NSW Department of Public Instruction. The second set of findings suggests two ways in which the national worked as a transnational shaping factor in her story, both constraining and empowering her. Originality/value The careers of non-Anglo women working in the early colonial secondary schools for girls have been rarely studied. This paper presents a previously untold story of one pioneering transnational headmistress in the NSW Department of Public Instruction. Her story complicates the transnational approach in the history of women’s education by highlighting the power of the national within the transnational.