ABSTRACT
The Girls’ Public Day School Company greeted the twentieth century with a monster prize-giving at the Albert Hall in May 1900. Princess Louise, who was to have presented the awards, was in mourning for her father-in-law the Duke of Argyll and her place was taken by the Princess of Wales, who was accompanied by her husband and their daughter Princess Victoria. ‘The prettiest sight possible to be seen,’ the Daily Graphic reported. ‘As the Princess passed through the avenue of her welcomers the white frocks on either side of her curtsied, as the yellow corn curtsies when the breeze sweeps through it! And how they sang the National Anthem! They sang it right through – “frustrate their knavish tricks, confound their politics!” – there were no pro-Boers at this meeting – and the full-throated loyalty was a pleasant sound to hear.’ A more sober report, in the Daily Telegraph, mentions the ‘large badges in the distinctive colours of each school . . . worn by every girl on her shoulder. The whole of the vast arena was occupied by the girls who were presently to be rewarded.’ The largest single contingent – eighty-seven prize-winners – came from Notting Hill High School; Blackheath, ‘now the biggest institution under the Company’, sent sixty-nine; and Kensington, Croydon, Clapham, South Hampstead, Highbury, Paddington, Dulwich, Wimbledon, Bromley, Sutton, Streatham Hill, Sydenham and East Putney together mustered six hundred. As each group of prize-winners came forward their headmistress was presented to the Princess by Lady Frederick Cavendish, who had been a member of the Council for nearly thirty years. ‘Only once’, the Telegraph continued, ‘was there a break in the long line of white-clad girls passing before the Princess, who had the sweetest smile for each one’, and that was an unfortunate child dressed in deep mourning. ‘One of the winners was of Parsee extraction. 85 And last of all came the one representative of the male sex in an exceedingly tiny boy from a kindergarten class, and the Princess laughingly stooped to pat him on the shoulder and to call him a good little fellow.’
