|
Leeds Girls' High School (LGHS) has an interesting history leading the educational advancement for girls in Britain. It was an independent (private), selective, fee-paying school for girls founded at Headingley in West Yorkshire (1876). At the time, educational opportunities for girls above the primary level were extremelyn limited. Many Brits still did not think education was all that important for girls and gave much more priority to boys. This was only beginning to change. Most secondary schools (public schools and grammar schools) were for boys. Frances Lupton and other members of the Ladies’ Honorary Council of the Yorkshire Board of Education saw that campaigning for female access to the universities was basically pointless until girls could achieve solid academic secondary schooling like the boys. They had trouble securing charitable funding so they latched on to an existing institution used by investors--so they established a joint stock company. Later LGHS would claim to have 'grammar school foundation'. This played on the prestige of the grammar school, but was not entirely accurate. There were no historic girls grammar schools. The whole idea of the fund raising, however, was essentially to create a girls' grammar school, although it beagn as a boarding school more like a public school. As was the established convention in British schools, the girls were divided into houses to provide av degree of guidance. The house system also fostered school competitions and to enabled the older girls to better influence the younger girls. At LGHS, they were named after the four patron saints of the United Kingdom: Andrew, David, George and Patrick. At first, LGHS was a secondary school for girls over age 13 years--slightly older than the age for grammar schools and public schools. The school eventually added two additional sections to the original senior school: Infant School (Rose Court): 3- to 7-year-olds, Junior School (Ford House): 7- to 11-year-olds, and Senior School: 11- to 18-year-olds. Boys were admitted to the infants and junior section. We are not entirely sure why this was decided upon, but suspect it was to accommodate parents with sons and daughter as well as staff members. LGHS merged with the boys Leeds Grammar School to form The Grammar School at Leeds (2005/08).
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1880s]
[The 1920s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
[The 1960s]
[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing School Uniform Pages
[Return to the Main individual English L-M school page ]
[Australia]
[England]
[France]
[Germany]
[Italy]
[Japan]
[New Zealand]
[Scotland]
[United States]
Navigate the HBC School Section:
[About Us]
[Activities]
[Chronology]
[Clothing styles]
[Countries]
[Debate]
[Economics]
[Garment]
[Gender]
[Hair]
[History]
[Home trends]
[Literary characters]
[School types]
[Significance]
[Transport and travel
[Uniform regulations]
[Year level]
[Other topics]
[Images]
[Links]
[Registration]
[Search]
[Tools]
[Return to the Historic Boys' School Home]
