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A Surrey Boarding & Day School for Girls aged 11–18
Old Girls' Day - Summer 2010
On May 15th we welcomed over 70 visitors back to the school for the Old Girls’ annual reunion. After drinks in the rose garden, tours of the boarding rooms and the AGM, everyone enjoyed lunch before swimming and outdoor activities, or listening to Kate Williams’ talk on Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson. We were thrilled to have so many old girls back for the first time. Susan, a cousin of Emily Benn (last year’s Speech Day guest) visited for the first time since 1948. She spoke movingly about her time at Prior’s Field, when she was visited by family member Tony Benn. More recent leavers shared their memories of the 1970s and 1990s and introduced their young daughters to the rooms where they had been taught and had lived as boarders.
At the AGM, a new Chair of the Association was elected; current parent and Old Girl Mrs Lucy Barnes. We are delighted that Lucy is taking on this role and will help us to build and develop our Huxley Club relationships in the future.
We are pleased to announce that Old Girls Day next year will be held on 14th May 2011 to reserve your tickets please do contact Sam Bushell the Alumnae coordinator – sbushell@priorsfieldschool.com
Baroness Warnock (PF 1941-1942) formally opens Prior’s Field’s own radio station, ‘Girls Allowed’.
The ‘Girls Allowed’ radio station is, we believe, the first and only independent girls’ school radio station in the UK Our radio frequency is 1431AM. The Radio Club and media students plan to broadcast during and after school and at special events that are of interest to the wider community.
After the opening, girls had a chance to interview one of the country’s most distinguished women philosophers and Prior’s Field Old Girl, Baroness Warnock, a former member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority and a regular guest on BBC Radio 3.
Baroness Warnock is best known for her straight forward approach to ethical dilemmas, such as human fertilisation, animal testing, special needs issues in education and euthanasia, especially when these dilemmas sit at the heart of the public domain. During her long career, Baroness Warnock sat on many committees and chaired inquiries about difficult moral issues which influenced and shaped public policies. She was created a life peer in 1985 (as Baroness Warnock of Weeke, in the City of Winchester) and still commutes into the House of Lords from her Wiltshire village every day.
Baroness Warnock also led the school's 2009 Founder’s Day assembly, telling the girls about her time at Prior’s Field in the sixth form and later at Oxford. She praised the vision of Julia Huxley and emphasised that the school had given her the confidence and encouragement to try for a place at Oxford where she subsequently studied and taught philosophy. Her personality certainly captured the attention of everyone sitting in the assembly hall when she talked about the importance of developing personal values.
Career: 1949-66 Fellow and tutor in philosophy, St Hugh's, Oxford; 1966-72 Headmistress, Oxford High School; 1972-76 Talbot Research Fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; 1976-84 Senior Research Fellow, St Hugh's, Oxford (1985 Hon Fellow); 1986-89 Master, Girton College, Cambridge. 1973-81 Member IBA; 1974-78 chair, committee of inquiry into special education; 1979-85 adviser, committee on animal experiments; 1982-84 chair, inquiry into human fertilisation .
Selected Publications: Ethics Since 1900 (1960, Oxford University Press, 1st edition); J-P. Sartre (1963); The Uses of Philosophy (1992, WileyBlackwell); Imagination and Time (1994, WileyBlackwell); Women Philosophers (1995, J.M. Dent & Sons); Mary Warnock: A Memoir – People and Places (2000, Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.).
Honours: 1984 DBE; 1985 created Baroness Warnock, of Weeke in the City of Winchester.
Botanical Artist and Old Girl Sally Crosthwaite donates books to the Burton-Brown Library
Sally Crosthwaite, Founder Member of The Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society and member of the Society of Floral Painters, visited Prior’s Field in Spring 2009 and presented two books, in which her work is featured, to the Burton-Brown Library.
Sally was awarded a Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Gold medal for her illustrations in 2002 and Distinction for her course on Botanical Illustration at the Chelsea Physic Garden. Her paintings are used for a wide range of products – tablemats, trays, book illustration and cards. Her work is also used as design on porcelain by Limoges China, which is highly collectable. Examples of this are held in important collections all over the world.
Please visit Sally’s website to see some of her work in the meticulous world of botanical painting: http://www.sallycrosthwaite.co.uk
Alison Jensen talks about her work during Old Girls’ Day 2009
Prior’s Field Old Girl Alison Jensen returned to the school on 9 May 2009 to give the annual Old Girls’ Day lecture on her career as an artist. Jensen says her love of art started at Prior’s Field but her formal training began at Byam Shaw School in London. This was followed by a year at the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, after which she was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy schools in London. Alison is widely known for her portraits, landscapes and drawings of musicians, dancers and actors at rehearsal. She was elected to serve as Master of the Art Workers Guild for 2009 and brought a group of guild members to visit Prior’s Field in April 2009, to see a fine example of Charles Voysey’s architectural work.
Please click here for an in-depth interview with Alison Jensen.
PF Old Girl Leaves a Thetis Blacker painting to Prior’s Field School
PF Old Girl Miss Kathleen Lorimer sadly passed away earlier this year, leaving an original Thetis Blacker watercolour to Prior’s Field School. Famous painter Thetis Blacker was a PF Old Girl too. The painting was presented to the school in early September and is now displayed in the Head’s office. Prior’s Field School community and the Old Girls Association are very saddened by Miss Lorimer’s death and are grateful for her generosity.
Miss Kathleen Lorimer was a pupil at Prior’s Field from 1941 to 1944 during the Second World War. Following this, she had secretarial training and worked in secretarial posts in Australia and the UK. In 1952 she became a civil servant at the Lord Chancellor’s Office, House of Lords, where she worked until her retirement in 1987. Miss Lorimer lived in Godalming, Surrey, until she passed away in April 2009.
