A house was leased at 80 Coleshill Street, later re-named Eaton Terrace, and on March 1^st 1881, at 12.15pm the school, subsequently known as Graham Street School, opened its doors.  Due to expanding numbers, it re-located to its present site in October of 1884.

As early as 1882 girls were prepared for the Cambridge Local Examinations and in 1884 a kindergarten was introduced for both girls and boys. The school archive still has the application forms for both Laurence Olivier and Tony Benn!

Threatened with closure throughout its history it has not only survived, but gone from strength to strength. Many traditions live on such as the School’s charitable work, the School Birthday on March 1st and the Old Girls’ Society.

A review of Graham Street Memories published in 1931 on the occasion of the Jubilee sums up the values instilled in the girls in that period, but it could have been written about the school today:

“Looking back on the beginnings, it is curious to compare the little body of Victorian girls and young women with the lively, active, open-air concern that a London day school is today, not only meeting to study, but undertaking innumerable activities –music, art, drama, guiding, games, mission and settlement work- within the school and without.”

A history of the school entitled The School That Refused to Die was published in 1981. Copies are available; please contact our Alumni Department for further information. A large proportion of the school’s archival documents have also been digitised and are now searchable. If you are conducting some research or would like to search the archives, please email us.