EDUCATION
Brighton & Hove High School – The Kindergarten The Old Vicarage
Brighton & Hove High School, Junior House The Old Vicarage
A history of success at Brighton & Hove High School
This year, Brighton & Hove High School is celebrating its 140th birthday. Situated in both Brighton’ s Montpelier Road and Radinden Manor Road in Hove, the school was established in 1876 by the Girls’ Public Day School Trust( GDST) – a pioneering organisation in the provision of education for girls. Today, the GDST is one of the largest charities in the UK, leading a network of independent girls’ schools, with 24 schools and two academies throughout England and Wales. Founded in 1872, it educates 20,000 students and has an alumnae network of over 65,000 women.
The Brighton & Hove High School archives cast light on a fascinating period of women’ s history. The first teachers at the school were university educated, although prevented from obtaining a degree from the institutions they had attended. The first head, Miss Creak, had been at a boys’ preparatory school in Hove where her father was headmaster. She entered Newnham College, Cambridge, at the age of 16, and by 21 she was back in Brighton inspiring many of her new pupils at Brighton High School( BHS) to apply to university.
The initial intake of 17 pupils at BHS included the future novelist and poet, Amy Levy, dubbed‘ the Jewish Jane Austen’; she had already published a volume of poetry when she became the first Jewish student at Newnham College. Oscar Wilde described her as“ a girl of genius”, and her novel Reuben Sachs( seen as a counterpoint to George Eliot’ s, Daniel Deronda),“ a classic”.
Amy’ s friends, the Black sisters, daughters of Brighton’ s town clerk and coroner, were also among the first pupils. Clementina, the eldest of eight children, became a teacher of mathematics and was active in the Women’ s Trade Union League. She was an early advocate of equal pay and helped organise the match girls’ strike at Bryant and May. She also published
seven novels. Her sister, Constance, received a government scholarship to attend Newnham College and went on to marry the publisher, David Garnett. She was the first to translate the Russian greats, introducing Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev for an English readership. In total she translated more than 60 texts, many of which are still in print.
By 1880, the school had expanded to over 100 pupils and moved to its current home in Thomas Kemp’ s former residence, The Temple. The Martindale sisters, Hilda and Louisa, attended BHS at this time. Their mother, also Louisa, was a member of the Women’ s Liberal Federation and the National Union of Women’ s Suffrage. Unsurprisingly, the girls would go on to have public careers, Hilda earning an OBE for her work as HM Inspector of Factories, Southern Division, and Louisa being accepted to study medicine at Royal Holloway at the age of 17. Louisa had her own practice in Brighton, where she was the first ever female GP, and went on to set up the New Sussex Hospital for Women in Windlesham Road, courting controversy by writing about and treating conditions associated with prostitution. She pioneered the early treatment of breast and cervical cancers and wrote several books on women’ s health, receiving a CBE in 1931.
As is evident, throughout its 140-year history, girls from the school have gone on to do so many varied and groundbreaking things. The 140th birthday celebrations will culminate on 6th July with a Race for Life event and picnic on Hove Lawns, where the whole school community will be taking part.
Head teacher, Jennifer Smith, says:“ We are very proud of Brighton and Hove High’ s heritage and its contribution to women’ s education over the years; but we are an outward-looking school, and proud to be part of the city of Brighton and Hove, so we are celebrating our birthday by trying to raise as much money as we can for Cancer Research UK, and at the same time having some fun with girls, staff and parents, past and present.”
Brighton & Hove High School Montpelier Rd Brighton BN1 3AT
01273 280280 www. bhhs. gdst. net
@ BHHSGDST / BrightonHoveHighSchool
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