Forty years ago – in 1969 – history was made when the first girls were admitted to the (Junior) School.
Two of the new girls – Katherine Troughton and Sara Whobrey – who joined Transition in that year are shown in this photograph. In order that this change of policy should not appear revolutionary, the Headmaster of the time, Geoffrey Lucas, insisted: “We are not going co-educational throughout the school. Girls will not be able to stay on after the age of eleven”.
The following account of the impact made by the first girls has been specially written by one of their first teachers, Miss Mary Chisholm.
“Kate Troughton and Sara Whobrey entered my form. They both had brothers at King’s. They were clever, feisty and happy little girls and immediately had an impact on the atmosphere of the form and Junior School. They joined in the boys’ activities and were very good at organising the boys, especially in the playground. They encouraged them to learn how to skip and use skipping ropes, play with hula-hoops and enjoy hop scotch and other playground games. There was noticeably less rough and rowdy play. In their turn the boys let the girls join in their games. On Sports Days new races were included.
It was the greatest joy for the staff and the boys that the girls could play their part in assemblies and dramatic productions, which became a feature of Junior School on every Friday morning and on annual special occasions, such as Christmas, Harvest and Speech Days. Boys naturally hated having to take girls’ parts. There is the wonderful apocryphal story about Thomas Whitmore taking the part of the Virgin Mary at the nativity play in the Chapter House. Every year the boy chosen for this part wore my pale blue lacy nightie, the hem of which was taken up to fit ‘Mary’. That year, Thomas decided that on entering the stable he would do a twirl round the stable poles, revealing his grey shorts, grey, yellow and navy banded knee socks and black lace-up shoes. With the arrival of girls, we were no longer entertained with such gems, although of course both boys and girls are unpredictable on these occasions.
On the academic front competition grew, which could only be for the good – as the addition of girls to King’s has undoubtedly proved to be.”