Founder’s Day 2018 6 | NORTH LONDON COLLEGIATE SCHOOL | SCHOOL MAGAZINE 2018
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y its very nature we are called upon to recognise, celebrate and commemorate those visionary people, who, 168 years ago, established North London Collegiate School in a small set of premises in Camden, North London. Each year we gather together as a school community to celebrate the vision and determination of those founders, and also to reflect on the continued development and progression of our School since then. I have only recently become part of the NLCS community – but it is clear to me already that this School is a very special place indeed. From the many conversations that I have had with ONLs and with current pupils, staff and parents, I understand that the spirit of this School runs deeply throughout its community. This has caused me to reflect on the nature and principles that underpin North London Collegiate – and to research the impetus behind its foundation, and the guiding code of ethics, moral values and educational ambition that lay behind it. Through the scope of my investigations and with grateful thanks to the Archive of North London Collegiate School, I have become fascinated by the impact that these founding principles have had and continue to have on our Old North Londoners, the graduates of our School. So, in this, my first Founder’s Day address, I am going to focus on the principles upon which North London Collegiate School was founded in 1850 and how those principles have been celebrated, promoted, challenged and personified by those thousands of young people who have attended NLCS as students over the years. When Miss Frances Mary Buss opened her school on 4 April 1850 she had clear and unequivocal ambitions for North London Collegiate: to provide the best and most comprehensive education possible for the girls in her care, equal at least to that already provided for boys, and for that education to be put to a good use in society.
