Reads Educating Daughters

EDUCATING DAUGHTERS

by Joanna Jepson

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 fi nd out how much has changed.

From its humble begin- of the Girls’ Public Day School School girls studying at Newnham nings in Clive House on Company opening the school, College, University of Cambridge. College Hill, SHS has set rather than the Church Schools’ Academic subjects off ered were out to instil great ambitions in its Company, but fears were soon largely in-keeping with school pupils. allayed. today – with the addition of

The school offi cially opened Advertisements from those Drawing, needlework, dancing on May 5, 1885. Thirty one girls early days stress the focus on and singing were timetabled in the enrolled under the headship of ‘intelligent advancement’. By afternoons and rounders, tennis, Miss Edith Cannings, newly 1893, there were three High drill and calisthenics kept the girls 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 staff room!). Nineteen juniors were admitted a week later and fees were just two pounds per term for juniors and fi ve pounds for seniors. There was initially SHS Staff c.1887 Miss Cannings some opposition to the idea Botany and Natural History.

Our School through the ages: Above, Science in 1906, 1960s and today, left alumnia Mary Beard and below Mary during her SHS days, and right, drama in the 1900s and a recent production of Chicago which was performed at Theatre Severn.

in good health. Mathematics was added to the timetable in 1886 and all three sciences by 1900. A photograph from this era depicts a well kitted-out laboratory presided over by a female science teacher. Subjects for Kindergarten pupils from this period included ‘sticklaying’, ‘button-laying’ and ‘paper twisting’.

The Admissions log shows some remarkable successes from this era; Anne Askew Woodall was the first girl to graduate from university – the daughter of a draper from Stafford, Anne lived with an aunt in Shrewsbury in order to attend school from age 14 – 18. She left in 1890 to study the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge and served as headmistress at Milton Mount College in Kent until her death in 1926. Daisy Gladys Scott left SHS in 1902 to study for a BSc at University College Liverpool, The Shrewsbury Chronicle of 1885 suggested that all those who valued their daughters’ education would likely welcome the opening of Shrewsbury High School, since it would help those girls ‘take their place among the foremost ranks of their fellow countrywomen’.

going on to publish a raft of papers and work as an assistant lecturer in Botany. And Dr Esther Harding (1899 to 1907), daughter of a dental surgeon who lived at Acton House, Kingsland, was the first High School pupil to train as a doctor. The family was progressive – with only daughters, the focus was on educating the girls to the highest possible level. Esther graduated from the London School of Medicine for Women in 1914. She would go on to study Psychiatry under Carl Jung, becoming a psychoanalyst in New York and publishing a pioneering work on the feminine psyche The Way of all Women among others.

Entries in the leather-bound log are made in beautiful calligraphy – a quick glance of the parents’ professions suggests girls joined from a cross-section of society; there are corn merchants, wine importers, hop merchants, mining engineers, drapers, tanners, surgeons and solicitors – reflecting much the same parental demographic as today. Reasons for leaving were often given as ‘delicate health’, or worst still, ‘death’ and there are some amusing exemptions given – notably ‘drawing’. The very first pupil listed was one Amy Gertrude

“Resilience to failure is our most powerful tool. That’s what’s lovely about Shrewsbury High, it’s that the people who are sitting around you now who will always have your back. Ten years after leaving Shrewsbury High, when I fall down, when I fail, these girls pick me up. So Shrewsbury High School girls don’t need to be afraid of failing because we have each other.” Amy Williams, SHS Alumna and Founder of Good-Loop

HRH Princess Louise

Attfi eld, a corn merchant’s daughter from 50 Belle Vue, Shrewsbury, who joined aged 13. Despite the progressive nature of the school, staff in the early years were most decidedly ‘Misses’ – and would leave their jobs as soon as they married.

The school grew quickly and Murivance House was purchased on Town Walls in 1896, with all 105 pupils moving in to a purpose built school the following year. The offi cial opening was conducted by HRH Princess Louise (daughter of Queen Victoria and Patron of the Girls’ Public Day School Company).

Uniform was initially not formalised – boaters topped white blouses and dark skirts. In an article for the school magazine, Joyce Haseler, who joined in 1911 and stayed on as a teacher until 1941, recalled the epoch of the hobble skirt. Girls played hockey and did drill and lunges with skirts ‘lifted to their knees’. Joyce described the science room as a ‘source of wonder’ and recalled breaking the rules by climbing onto a glass roof and cutting her initials on the desks, adding perhaps somewhat hypocritically: “We were not so constantly tiresome in little ways as many of you are and our manners were usually better”!

During the First World War, girls sent socks and mittens to Shropshire battalions and jam to sailors and raised money for the YMCA and Local Belgian Relief Fund. The school closed for nearly three weeks in October 1918 during the infl uenza outbreak. during the infl uenza outbreak.

Long serving headmistress Miss Gale (1907-1935) presided over the school during these turbulent times; there is a dedication to her headship in the library window.

Evacuees from London and Merseyside were enrolled at SHS during the Second World War, along with Jewish refugees from Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia. A nettle collection was started in response to a national appeal for nettles for the purpose of dyeing camoufl age. Books and magazines were collected for the school’s ‘adopted’ merchant navy ship, SS Twickenham. When the ship docked at Plymouth, the captain had one of its lifebuoys painted in SHS colours! This was sent to the school after the war and hung in the Old Hall for many years.

Charity eff orts continued after the war – in 1949, girls collected 1409 eggs for the Shirlett Sanatorium! saw the new House system introduced: Cannings, after the school’s fi rst headmistress, Gurney, Hallam, Magnus, Somerville and Stanley after benefactors

SHS Guildes adopted a British Prisoner of War in Germany sending him regular parcels.

Ilustration from our archives 1941

and friends of the school.

It was in 1959 that SHS took over ‘ It was in 1959 that SHS took over ‘Stepping Stones’ preparatory school on Kennedy Road in Kingsland and preparatory school on Kennedy Road in Kingsland and merged it with its junior department. The autumn term merged it with its junior department. The autumn term

Gradually, through the 1970s to the present day, new buildings were acquired and built along Town Walls, to provide: a sixth form house, new gymnasium, science buildings, a performing arts studio, purpose built library and new sports hall. In 2008, the Junior school merged with Kingsland Grange Prep School.

Modern alumnae include the English scholar and classicist Dame Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and Amy Williams, Founder & CEO of Good Loop ethical advertising tool, listed in the Forbes ’30 Under 30’. A gem in the archives is Mary’s article for the school magazine in 1967 about her time at the trampoline club – her biting sarcasm belies her very bright mind: “I could write about _____ and be sued for libel,” she says! “I leave you with the words of Mon General: ‘Vive le trampoline!’ ‘Vive le trampoline!’ ‘Vive le trampoline libre!’

Also an SHS pupil was Hilda Murrell, a British rose grower, naturalist, diarist and campaigner against nuclear power who was abducted and found murdered fi ve miles from her Shropshire home in 1984.

This is an abridged and adapted version of a wonderful history of the school compiled by archivist Librarian Alex Hale.

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