FROM THE ARCHIVES
100 Years Ago LHS in 1921
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921 saw the birth of The High School Magazine. As the Editors, M. Allcock and M Towle, pointed out, ‘a school of the size of ours ought to keep some record of its doings’, although a further motivation seems to have been to make it ‘a keen rival to the Loughburian’ (the boys’ school magazine). Certainly, any school archivist is immensely grateful for the institution of such a magazine as those copies are the single most important historical item for giving those of us looking back an idea of what the School was like and the significant events for its inhabitants. The editors hoped that, through contributions from across the school, the magazine would ‘reveal much genius’ and they particularly appealed for Old Girls to make contributions (as they were included in the distribution list). Note that there was a charge to receive the magazine. The thoughts of an Old Girl (Isobel Thornley at that stage teaching History at University College London) on the new magazine are printed. She hoped that the creation of this magazine ‘should help to maintain a living tradition of achievement and success which should fire the imagination and ambitions of other generations of Loughburians’. Isobel writes passionately in her encouragement of girls at the school to aim high and grasp the new academic opportunities that now lay before them at the start of the 1920s. After describing her career path through to a Master’s degree and her imminent departure
Miss Bristol
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to take up a position of AssistantProfessor at an American University, she encourages ‘let them be ambitious for these desirable things; they are not so hard to attain’ and advocates a university education as bringing more opportunity than just the previous principle route into school teaching: ‘since the war brought wisdom, employers in almost every business and profession are anxious to secure the services of University women, and the Federation of University Women has developed machinery to supply the demand. The possibilities of the situation are endless.’ The High School Magazine is but one of the many new initiatives Miss Edith Bristol, appointed Head in 1920, was pursuing. The school had ‘advanced towards self-government’ that academic year by instigating prefects and form captains and a new system of marking work implemented with five possible grades: Red A, A, B, C and D. Girls achieving three As in succession were allowed to sign their names in an Honours Book. In Miss Bristol’s letter to the girls, she appeals for them to ‘stay longer at School’. It seems many were leaving at 14 or 15, but Miss Bristol feared for their job prospects in the economic climate; she felt that the real experience of school life didn’t begin until they became ‘senior girls’ and had the ‘opportunity of representing and serving the School, of giving as well as receiving’. This year saw the acquisition of the first school trophy, the Handley Cup, awarded for ‘gymnastic work’. This was provided by Mrs Allcock (née Handley) who had just become one of ‘three Lady Governors of the School’ and presented to the winners by a Miss Fernyhaugh whose presence in school seemed to cause much excitement. The School hoped to receive more such trophies and encouraged the girls to think of ways of improving their fledgling library, recommending the ‘delightful custom’ of some other schools ‘whereby girls who are leaving present, either individually
or in groups, one or more volumes to the Library’. We have certainly found snippets of evidence in the archive that suggests this initiative did begin and was sustained for some considerable years. Miss Mary Walmsley, the previous Head, was welcomed to that year’s Speech Day, taking place in the Corn Exchange, in order to distribute the prizes. She was received with cheering from the ‘270 white-robed maidens present’ as she made her thank you speech on receiving a gift. For many years the Grammar School had celebrated Founder’s Day in memory of Thomas Burton but in 1921, the High School were invited to join this commemoration in a much grander version at the Parish Church. Miss Bristol points out to readers of the magazine that as well as understanding ‘the debt we owe to our Founder’, they should also take the opportunity to remember ‘the unnumbered and perhaps to us unknown folk , men and women, whose devoted service in the past has secured for us the educational and other advantages which make it possible for our life to be so much wider and fuller than that of our grandmothers.” Buried in the notes of News of Old Girls, but quite rightly highlighted again elsewhere in the magazine, is news of another role model for the girls: Margaret Wintringham (LHS 1897), recently elected as MP for Louth.