Research Forum

I have received this request for help.

“I'm trying to find out the school in WSM that my grandmother boarded at in 1906. I have an autograph book of hers with many signatures of her classmates and at the bottom all it says is 'High School, Weston-super-Mare 1906'.  She was from Bath. Her name was Dorothy BROWN.

The other names include:  Edith RAWLINGS, Helen MICHAELSON,  Babs SAWYER, Marjorie  SIMPSON,  Marjorie DASH, Enid BENNET,  Pearl and Patty SISSMORE,  Peggy SCHMIDT, Constance PERRY.”

We have subsequently established that she was born Evelyn Dorothy BROWN in Bath in 1894 which means that she would have been about 12 when she was at this school and presumably her friends would have been about the same age.  Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to trace these names with any certainty on either the 1901 or 1911 censuses.  On the 1911 census she is listed as Dorothy Eveline BROWN and she is an assistant nurse (Nurse Probationer) at St Faith's Private Nursing Home in Ealing, Brentford.

Curiously her birth certificate lists “Unknown” for both her father and her mother.  On her marriage certificate she gave her father’s name as Dr John Bedford BROWN and the family story is that she came from a large family and was “given away” – she is listed as a foster child in Bath in 1901.

We have been unable to trace a “High School” for Girls in Weston although there were many private schools here at that time.  Is anyone researching any of the names of her friends as listed above and can give a clue as to which school they might have attended?  Suggestions for further research would also be welcomed.