SCRIBBLE
EDUCATING DAUGHTERS by Joanna Jepson
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Shrewsbury High School is celebrating its 135th year of helping girls take their place among the top ranks of society. We delved into the archives to find out how much has changed.
rom its humble beginnings in Clive House on College Hill, SHS has set out to instil great ambitions in its pupils.
of the Girls’ Public Day School Company opening the school, rather than the Church Schools’ Company, but fears were soon allayed.
The school officially opened on May 5, 1885. Thirty one girls enrolled under the headship of Miss Edith Cannings, newly arrived from Croydon High School. She arrived in Shrewsbury with a very large and very noisy dog Hako (‘Hush, hush Hako’ became a proverbial saying in the staffroom!). Nineteen juniors were admitted a week later and fees were just two pounds per term for juniors and five pounds for seniors. There was initially some opposition to the idea
Advertisements from those early days stress the focus on ‘intelligent advancement’. By 1893, there were three High
SHS Staff c.1887
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School girls studying at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. Academic subjects offered were largely in-keeping with school today – with the addition of Botany and Natural History. Drawing, needlework, dancing and singing were timetabled in the afternoons and rounders, tennis, drill and calisthenics kept the girls
Miss Cannings
