Old Princethorpians

Earlier in the summer the College received a telephone call from Ruth Paget. Her mother, Margaret, was about to celebrate her eightieth birthday in September and Ruth wished to compile a special birthday scrapbook to celebrate the occasion.

Margaret Laidlaw (née Sewell - Corby), along with her sister Gillian, was a pupil at St Mary’s Priory in the late 1940s and Ruth hoped that she would be mentioned in the archives.

Karen O’Connor, our Library Assistant, looked through early copies of the St Mary's school magazine, Peeps of Princethorpe, and found that Margaret had been successful in various competitions and examinations. Karen discovered that later editions of Peeps also described the marriages of Margaret and Gillian.

As the Old Princethorpian was being finalised today we received a phone call from Margaret who now lives in Dunbar, East Lothian.  She was effusive in her thanks for our assistance in uncovering all the information, commenting' I was thrilled to bits when my daughter presented me with the scrapbook, which was entitled, Margaret's Life - A Rich Tapestry. Princethorpe was a real foundation of my life and the information gathered has filled in parts of my childhood that I had forgotten."

Margaret recalled her 'five very happy years at the Priory' and her love of  her teachers Miss Peake and Miss Comsky.

We're delighted that we were able to contribute to making Margaret's birthday extra special and look forward to keeping in touch.

Dr Nick Baker has  joined the College as our new Archivist. Nick has worked with historic books and manuscripts for most of his life and looks forward to sinking his teeth into Princethorpe’s history!

Over the past few years, the College has been drawing together documents, magazines, photographs and objects. This collection is now kept in acid-free boxes and most of it is recorded in the PastPerfect database. However, a great deal of work remains to be done!

Nick’s immediate plans are to catalogue the back-log of material and to make it more accessible to a wide audience. A major priority is to integrate the Archives more fully into the curriculum.

Old Princethorpians have a major part to play in preserving the College’s history. Nick would be delighted to hear from anyone who wishes to donate material or who would like to learn more about the Archive Project. The College’s historic collections will play a major part in the forthcoming Golden Jubilee celebrations.

Nick looks forward to meeting OPs and hopes to arrange archive-related events in the future.

To contact Nick, email nickbaker@princethorpe.co.uk.