St Trinnean's was a progressive girls' school in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. It was founded in 1922 by its

headmistress A head master, head instructor, bureaucrat, headmistress, head, chancellor, principal or school director (sometimes another title is used) is the staff member of a school with the greatest responsibility for the management of the school. In som ...

, Catherine Fraser Lee, who followed the

Dalton Plan The Dalton Plan is an educational concept created by Helen Parkhurst. It is inspired by the intellectual ferment at the turn of the 20th century. Educational thinkers such as Maria Montessori and John Dewey influenced Parkhurst while she create ...

so that pupils could study what they wished and there was no homework. It was located at 10, Palmerston Road – the former home of

Horatius Bonar Horatius Bonar (19 December 180831 July 1889), a contemporary and acquaintance of Robert Murray M'cheyne was a Scotland, Scottish churchman and poet. He is principally remembered as a prodigious hymnodist. Friends knew him as Horace Bona ...

– a minister and prodigious hymn writer. In 1925, it relocated to the grand mansion of St Leonard's Hall which had been built for the wealthy publisher, Thomas Nelson. In 1929, it had 122 day children and 38

boarder A boarder may be a person who: *snowboards *skateboards *bodyboards * surfs *stays at a boarding house *attends a boarding school *takes part in a boarding attack The Boarder may also refer to: * ''The Boarder'' (1953 film), a 1953 Soviet drama ...

s – pupils who lived at the school. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the school evacuated to New Gala House – a mansion in

Galashiels Galashiels (; sco, Gallae, gd, An Geal Àth) is a town in the Scottish Borders with a population of around 12,600. Its name is often colloquially shortened to "Gala". The town is a major commercial centre for the Borders region with extensive ...

. Its pupils at that time included Jewish refugees of the ''

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

''. After the war, the school closed when Miss Fraser Lee retired in 1946. The

school uniform A school uniform is a uniform worn by students primarily for a school or otherwise an educational institution.They are common in primary and secondary schools in various countries. An example of a uniform would be requiring button-down shir ...

was a pale blue

tunic A tunic is a garment for the body, usually simple in style, reaching from the shoulders to a length somewhere between the hips and the knees. The name derives from the Latin ''tunica'', the basic garment worn by both men and women in Ancient Rome ...

with fawn-coloured stockings and coat of

Harris Tweed Harris Tweed, (''Clò Mór'' or ''Clò Hearach'' in Gaelic) is a tweed (cloth), tweed cloth that is Weaving, handwoven by islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool ...

. The school was named after

Saint Ninian Ninian is a Christian saint, first mentioned in the 8th century as being an early missionary among the Pictish peoples of what is now Scotland. For this reason he is known as the Apostle to the Southern Picts, and there are numerous dedication ...

, who was also known as Trinnean. The pupils were divided into four

houses A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

, which were named after people and places associated with the saint – Clagrinnie, Kilninian, Monenn and

Whithorn Whithorn ( �ʍɪthorn 'HWIT-horn'; ''Taigh Mhàrtainn'' in Gaelic), is a royal burgh in the historic county of Wigtownshire in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, about south of Wigtown. The town was the location of the first recorded Christian ...

. Each pupil wore a tie in the colour of their house – Kilninian was green, for example. Reunions of old pupils were held. When one was advertised in 1955, the name of the school was misprinted causing confusion with Ronald Searle's parody, '' St Trinian's School'', which had been recently filmed as '' The Belles of St. Trinian's''. The headmistress issued a denial that her girls were anything like those depicted by Searle. She was not happy with his portrayal, which had first appeared in 1946, when she told the school that, "After 20 years at St Trinneans, I am broken-hearted."

Pupils

* Cecile McLachlan née Johnston, the artist who became friends with

Ronald Searle Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI (3 March 1920 – 30 December 2011) was an English artist and satirical cartoonist, comics artist, sculptor, medal designer and illustrator. He is perhaps best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's S ...

as a girl and so inspired his creation of the fictional

St Trinians ''St Trinian's'' is a British gag cartoon comic strip series, created and drawn by Ronald Searle from 1946 until 1952. The cartoons all centre on a boarding school for girls, where the teachers are sadists and the girls are juvenile delinquents. ...

* Helen Lillie – "It was always freezing cold and coldness seemed to be regarded as an aid to learning ... Miss Fraser Lee was as implacable a dictator as any in Europe in the 1930s." * Jean Innes, one of the first pupils – "School days at St Trinnean's really were the happiest of my life." * Joan Campbell – the doctor and former

head girl Head boy and head girl are student leadership roles in schools, representing the school's entire student body. They are normally the most senior prefects in the school. The terms are commonly used in the British education system as well as in Aus ...

who organised a reunion of nearly 100 pupils in 1998 * Mair Eleri Morgan Livingstone née Thomas, who would climb from the school dormitory to the roof and, later, became a doctor and bacteriologist * Margaret Hollister, daughter of American missionaries to China, who became a social worker in Washington, DC. *

Pauline Harrison Pauline May Harrison (née Cowan) (born 24 August 1926) is a British protein crystallographer and professor emeritus at the University of Sheffield. She gained her chemistry degree from Somerville College, Oxford in 1948, followed by a DPhil i ...

, crystallographer

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Trinnean's School 1922 establishments in Scotland Educational institutions established in 1922 Girls' schools in Edinburgh Independent schools in Edinburgh