It's our Birthday!
Published on 17/01/23
Former Stephen Perse Junior School Head Katie Milne visited the Foundation to present us with our traditional basket of blue hyacinths, marking our 142nd birthday on 17 January 2023.
Katie presented a basket for the Senior School and Sixth Form on behalf of the former Deputy Head of the Senior School, Rosemary Tice, and her own basket for the Junior School.
This tradition was introduced by Audrey Scott, Head of the Senior School between 1947 and 1967, continued by sisters the Misses Graham-Campbell after Audrey’s retirement and then taken up by Rosemary and Katie.
The annual presentation reminds us of our roots as a pioneering educational establishment, with alumni ranging from Anna Bidder, zoologist and co-founder of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge and the economist John Maynard Keynes, to journalist and novelist, Lucy Hawking. Founded in 1881 as a ground-breaking girls school, with a mixed kindergarten, the initial school’s establishment was funded from a legacy left in 1615 by the Cambridge academic and philanthropist, Stephen Perse. Dr Perse believed that an outstanding education should be a right rather than a privilege, accessible to all.
Today at the Stephen Perse family of co-educational schools in Cambridge and Saffron Walden, we continue to live those values through our mission to educate and inspire the contributors to tomorrow’s world: intelligent young people with the creativity, compassion, confidence and conviction to question, evaluate and improve society.
