Rewind back to where it all began
Julia Huxley, mother of author Aldous Huxley, founded the school in 1902. An advocate for women’s education, and part of the pioneering first generation of women to study at Oxford University, her vision for girls’ education was both progressive and ambitious. She had long cherished an ambition to open a school of her own. When the school first opened, there were just seven pupils of which her son Aldous was one.
A brilliant scholar and gifted teacher, Julia Huxley had modern and original ideas for education. She very much believed in teaching her subjects in an interactive way including taking students to galleries, concerts and museums. She also allowed the girls an unusual freedom of thought and expression and encouraged a love of books, culture and solitude.
When Julia Huxley died in 1908 aged just 46, she had established a thriving and successful school. She was succeeded by Ethel Burton-Brown and, in turn, by Ethel’s daughter Beatrice Burton-Brown who was Headmistress at the time of Prior’s Field’s Golden Jubilee in 1952. Together, these formidable women created a unique and distinctive school with an ethos of joy in learning and ambition for girls which continues to this day.
The Prior’s Field School building is deeply rooted in history. The original buildings were designed by C.F.A. Voysey, one of the leading architects of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Our school motto, “We live by Admiration, Hope and Love”, taken from William Wordsworth, is inscribed in the architecture in several places and continues to shape the spirit of the school today.
View the Prior’s Field Archive for more information on the history of Prior’s Field and images from across the decades.
“We have something left to do for her sake – to work at Prior’s Field & in the world outside, so that the traditions which she planted and loved so much may grow and flourish, and that her ideas for us may be realised.”
