Welcome to the St Mary's Hall Association

St Mary's Hall was one of the country's oldest schools for girls and was founded in 1836 by the Revd. Henry Venn Elliot for the "daughters of poor clergy".

The school closed in 2009, with the Junior School transferring to become Roedean’s Junior School and many of its remaining senior school girls also moving to complete their education at Roedean.**

This left the St Mary’s Hall Association in the position of lacking a physical focal point and at the Annual General Meeting in May 2009 it was decided to move to a virtual focal point – namely this site.

Life members of SMHA please log on using the box at the top right corner of this, or any page, of the website, to explore the full site. This includes accessing the contact details of many of your school-friends

Associate members and other visitors please do look at our News Page which we will keep updated with information of interest.

If you wish to join as a Life Member or if you have the name/s of any friend/s you would like to be put in touch with please email our This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

A brief history of the School

Revd. Henry Venn Elliot had visited the clergy daughter school in Casterton (which was attended by all Bronte sisters and was the inspiration for Jane Eyre) founded in 1832 by the Revd. Carus Wilson and was keen that there should be "a similar institution in the South". The pupils were "destined to be governesses" and Henry Venn Elliot considered Brighton as the place to build the school as the Prince Regent had made it a very popular place to live, and there would be many wealthy families looking for a Governess. The therapeutic qualities of the sea air appear also to have been a factor. (Those of us who boarded at St Hilary House remember the qualities very well, especially in the winter term!)

Looking back to the earliest register of pupils and their post-school destinations, it does not appear to have proved a particularly useful source of employment but Henry Venn Elliot was obviously a very practical man and not short of influence and powers of persuasion.

The Marquis of Bristol, who had property in Kemp Town, gave £500 for land on which the school was built. Henry Venn Elliot persuaded George Basevi (the very well-known architect of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge) to provide plans for "The Hall" free of charge, and collected some very influential supporters with money to contribute - Queen Adelaide was one. (Adelaide House).

Henry Venn Elliot was vicar of St. Mary's Church in Brighton - hence the name of the school - and the girls attended the services there. Some years later (1850/60s?) the Earl of Bristol decided to build a Church for the school in the same grounds and reading between the lines of the reports at that time, the Revd. Henry Venn Elliot was not best pleased and stipulated that the girls would continue to attend St. Mary's in his lifetime.
Subscriptions for the new Church building were somewhat slow in coming and "the Earl of Bristol had to pay for the glazing himself".

The early reports include a prospectus and clothes list which are historically interesting. The clothes list states that "Every girl will bring with her a Bible and a Prayer Book, a new umbrella...." and a variety of petticoats (cotton, stuff, flannel); and "a silver knife spoon and fork which will be returned " ."Frocks, tippets and shawls will be provided by the Hall". (More intimate garments in the form of "6 pairs of drawers" appear somewhere around 1860s/70s). A laundry list of the 1880s/90s also proved interesting. (Later boarders recall the restrictions on "mufti" including as late as 1970 NO trousers - amended at around that time to be interpreted as NO jeans, but "smart trousers permitted except on Sundays).

The annual accounts have a simplicity that many schools would envy to-day. The Lady Principal was paid £100p.a. (quite a princely sum then) and the six "governesses" a total of £150. "Butchers' meat" was nearly the same as the sum total for the Governesses and "Hair-cutting, coal and candles" all came under the same heading. Beer was also quite an item - presumably because the water was not fit for drinking.

Educationally the school was very far advanced and the school taught a great deal more than the usual "accomplishments" of that era. They took the training of a Governess very seriously indeed. The pupils arrived about the age of eight and became pupil-teachers somewhere in their mid-teens staying on until they were considered "qualified". We believe that the school was also one of the earliest schools who took the Cambridge Public Examinations in the 1870s - certainly the breadth of the curriculum including sciences, was unusual for girls at that time.

We are very grateful to Olwen Davies and Sue Meek for the above information and would be delighted to add to it with memories of past staff and pupils.

** We are pleased that Roedean is happy to be associated with SMHA and to link any former pupils of St Mary’s Hall from their website, www.roedean.co.uk