Papers relating to the centenary of the North London Collegiate School for Girls,...

This section contains material relating to celebrations marking the centenary of the North London Collegiate School for Girls which were held from 29th March to 4th April 1950. The papers here relate to Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury's association with the school, its founder and headmistress Frances Mary Buss (1827-1894) and her attendance at the centenary celebrations. Letters from Dame Kitty Anderson (1903-1979), headmistress of the school from 1944 to 1965, are also included in this section.

Finding number: MS 466/182-187

Information about Frances Mary Buss and the North London Collegiate School taken from Elizabeth Coutts, 'Buss, Frances Mary (1827-1894)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37249] accessed 17th February 2009. Information about Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury and Frances Mary Buss from Richenda Scott, Elizabeth Cadbury: 1858-1951 (London: Harrap, 1955), pp. 25-26.

Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury attended the North London Collegiate School for Girls from 1874 to 1876. The original school was established by Frances Fleetwood, wife of Robert William Buss in 1845. Frances's daughter Frances Mary Buss taught at the school before becoming headmistress in 1850 when the school was renamed the North London Collegiate School. The school aimed to educate girls from a variety of social and religious backgrounds, providing a practical education which included training in physical exercise. There were over two hundred girls in the school by 1865. Frances Mary Buss became a pioneering figure in girls' education, supporting educational reform and influencing the development of schooling for women. Many of the girls she oversaw at the North London Collegiate School went on to work as school teachers and headmistresses themselves.

Frances Mary Buss's 'tireless energy and enthusiasm' had an enduring influence on Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury who was inspired by Buss's idea that education should function to prepare girls for wider social service in their later lives. Taylor Cadbury herself became an important figure in the development of education for women and children in Birmingham during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The centenary of the North London Collegiate School was celebrated in April 1950 to mark one hundred years since the school's foundation by Frances Mary Buss on 4th April 1850. The celebrations included an opening ceremony with exhibitions of material from the school's archive and a Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving held at St. Paul's Cathedral. The Old North Londoners' Association for past pupils of the school held a celebratory dinner on 1st April 1950 where Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury, the oldest surviving pupil of the school, gave a toast to Miss Buss. Current staff and students at the school also performed 'Tableaux Vivants', a series of narrated scenes celebrating Miss Buss's life and the history of the North London Collegiate School to commemorate the event.