In 1924 Gloucester Girls’ High School Parents’ Association was founded.

Speech Day was held in Shire Hall in 1924.  The Old Girls’ Association presented a ‘Wireless Receiving Set’ and in January 1926 the girls heard the BBC welcome them to school broadcasts.

The first trip abroad was in 1926 when a party of girls went to Paris.  Soon annual exchange visits were arranged and French and German girls were welcomed to the school in the summer term.  One year three Egyptian girls spent a term at Denmark Road. At this time the school had 450 students. 

1925/26 - High School Magazine (Edition No. 7)

News of Old Friends

Stella Brewer was awarded a State Scholarship  on the results of Higher Certificate in which she obtained distinction in all three group subjects (English, History and French), being the only candidate in England to do so, moreover, the University of Cambridge awarded her the Lowman Memorial Prize given to the candidate doing best in English in the examination.  She went on to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

 

Lilian Oldfield, the film actress, who has married Mr Reginald Denham, producer of plays, is an old girl of the High School.  Before taking up film acting she was private secretary to the late Mr Herbert Jenkins, the well-known publisher.

Lilian Mary Oldfield (Newland) (1903-1984)

Lilian was a British leading lady of the silent screen, began on stage in the early 1920s. appearing in more than twenty films between 1925 and 1935.  She was born in Gloucester in 1903 and made her film debut in The Secret Kingdom and was soon cast as a regular in the Bindle Series of films. In 1930 she changed her name to Mary Newland and was credited as that thereafter.  She made her last film, The Silent Passenger, in 1935.  Being the second wife of Reginald Denham, makes her Angela Lansbury's mother's first husband's second wife.  Her second husband was MP and playwright Edward Percy (known in Parliament by his full name Edward Percy Smith). They were married in Hampstead, North London in 1951 and remained together until his death in 1968.  She died in Brighton in 1984.

Films:

The Flag Lieutenant (1926), The Further Adventures of the Flag Lieutenant (1927), A Daughter in Revolt (1927), Virginia's Husband (1928), Troublesome Wives (1928), The City of Youth (1928), To Oblige a Lady (1931), The Officers' Mess (1931), Jealousy (1931), Ask Beccles (1933), The Jewel (1933), Easy Money (1934), Death at Broadcasting House (1934), The Price of Wisdom (1935), The Silent Passenger (1935) The Small Man (1936)

 

What's happening in history?

22nd of January 1924 : Ramsay MacDonald becomes Britain's 1st Labour PM
23rd of January 1924 : First Labour Government
23rd of April 1924 : First Broadcast by British Monarch
5th of July 1925 : Giant Hailstone Hits Plumstead
18th of July 1925 : Mein Kampf Published
26th of September 1925 : Blackpool illuminations light up for 1st time
26th of January 1926 : John Logie Baird gives first demonstration of television
7th of March 1926 : First Two-Way Transatlantic Phone Call
3rd of May 1926 : The Great General Strike Begins
7th of August 1926 : Britains 1st Grand Prix is held at Brooklands
14th of October 1926 : Winnie the Pooh Published
3rd of December 1926 : Agatha Christie vanishes