This week we are celebrating our school’s birthday and during whole school assembly we came together to reflect on 148 years of Sheffield Girls’ and to commemorate the long, illustrious history that we continue to build together.

So, what was life like back in 1878?

To put us in our historical context, I thought it would be fascinating to share what was happening in the world when our school first opened its doors. In 1878, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone to Queen Victoria. The very first commercial telephone exchange opened, and Thomas Edison patented the phonograph. It was a pivotal year for culture too, seeing the founding of major football clubs like Everton, Ipswich Town, and Manchester United (then known as Newton Heath). It was also the year the UK saw its very first weekly weather reports.

But back in 1878, education for girls, as we know it today, was only in its infancy. 148 years ago, the world looked very different for women. In Victorian England, education for girls was, at best, limited; at worst, it was entirely non-existent. While boys were being prepared for university, public life, and leadership, girls were often offered only the bare essentials: reading, sewing, and the social graces.

However, there were women – including our founders – who refused to accept that this was the best girls could hope for. Women like Frances Mary Buss and the founders of this school, after whom our Houses are named: Lady Stanley of Alderley, Maria Grey, Maria Gurney, and Emily Shirreff. They fought for girls to receive an academic education equal to that of their brothers. They set out to build schools that would challenge the norms; places where girls could study maths, science, literature, and languages, not because it was fashionable, but because it was necessary.

They were forging a pathway through a world dominated by men, a world that questioned their right to speak, let alone to lead. They were met with resistance, ridicule, and even hostility. But through resilience and relentless purpose, they pressed on. They created one of the most influential movements in the history of education, and each of our pupils today is part of that pioneering and ongoing legacy.

Our school opened its doors on the 12th of March 1878 in Surrey Street, in the city centre, with just 39 girls. Our first Head was Miss Mary Algar, who opened the school and set it upon its journey. Just two terms later, Mrs. Woodhouse took over. We often use the phrase “Girls of Steel” to describe the students of this school. It is a brilliant play on words and a nod to our city’s famous industry. But if we look back at Mary Algar and Mrs. Woodhouse, we realise that they were the original steelwrights of this identity. In the 1870s, “steel” wasn’t just what the city manufactured; it was the temperament required for a woman to demand an education.

When Mary Algar opened those doors, she was working with a “raw material” that society said didn’t need tempering. People thought girls’ minds were too “fragile” for hard science or mathematics. Mary Algar and Elizabeth Woodhouse disagreed. They knew that with the right heat, and the right challenge, a Sheffield girl could become as unbreakable as the city’s finest exports.

When Mrs. Woodhouse insisted on a purpose-built laboratory here at Rutland Park, she was laying the foundation for the engineers, scientists, and leaders who have since studied with us. She understood that a girl with “steel” in her character doesn’t just wait for an opportunity; she builds her own. Being “Girls of Steel” isn’t about being tough; it’s about being refined and purposeful. Just as Sheffield steel changed the world by building the bridges and engines of the modern age, the education started by Mary Algar and Mrs. Woodhouse was designed to build the people who would change the world.

I have loved digging into the school’s history to look for stories to share with you today, and Mrs. Woodhouse certainly provides many. She was famous for her presence. It was said that she didn’t need to raise her voice to command a room of hundreds. One former pupil recalled that when she walked into the Hall, a “hushed awe” would fall over the girls. She didn’t lead through noise; she led through a quiet, steel-like dignity, showing her girls that a woman’s authority didn’t have to be loud to be absolute. Our founders believed that if you were to be a ‘Girl of Steel,’ your mind had to be as sharp as a blade, and they provided the unique environment to develop that.

This memory, shared by one of the first ‘Old Girls’ on the school’s 50th birthday, gives an idea of what it felt like to be a student back then:

“There was a good deal of prejudice and suspicion to live down in 1878, and we were made to feel that we were pioneers, and that the sacred cause of women’s education depended in a measure on our conduct. One lady declared that she always knew the High School Girls: they walked in the middle of the road and wore no gloves. It may have been in consequence of this that we were made to feel it a high crime to appear in the street ungloved. There were no convenient electric trams, only a few ponderous buses drawn by three or four horses, so most of us footed it from Pitsmoor or Broomhill… Sheffield is a very different City from what it was in 1878, but I hope and believe that the traditions of loyalty, hard work, and sterling character are maintained on the same high level as when they were initiated by our courageous founders.”

When the school moved to its home on Rutland Park in 1884, Mrs. Woodhouse was involved in every detail. At a time when many girls’ schools were housed in draughty, repurposed villas, she pushed for specialised spaces like a proper library and a laboratory, features almost unheard of for girls at the time. When she eventually left Sheffield, her students were so moved by her impact that they formed the very first Old Girls’ Association. They simply didn’t want to lose their connection to the woman who had effectively invented the modern female Sheffield student.

Today, it is vital that we celebrate our history, that we delve into it, and that we carry these traditions forward. Generations to come must understand their place in this pioneering movement, a movement built in defiance of a world that believed girls were simply not capable.

On this 148th birthday, we feel lucky to have the opportunity to take a second to reflect and give thanks for the boundless opportunities available to us today, made possible by the quiet, unbreakable steel of the women who came before us. 

Happy Birthday, Sheffield Girls’. 

Alex Wilson

Head