Mary’s legacy will go down in history books

NAME change . . . head teacher Lynda Thompson with pupils (from left) John Paul Hillary, Jordan Emms, Bret Szwandt and Omar Farook. Inset: Mary Higgs

ONE of the borough’s great social reformers is being honoured by youngsters.

Oldham’s Pupil Support and Specialist Learning Centre has been renamed Kingsland School.

The title was chosen to celebrate Mary Kingsland, later Higgs, who turned her home in West Street into a lodging house for women and a school for mothers.

A school uniform has also been introduced and the school extended.

Kingsland has 154 secondary-age pupils based at Dean Street, Failsworth, and Broadbent Road, Watersheddings.

They include those who have been excluded, or are at risk of being excluded, from mainstream school, young mums, those too ill to attend school, school-phobics and pupils with special needs.

The school holds its first presentation evening under the new name tomorrow.

Head teacher Lynda Thompson said: “Kingsland School ensures that the education students receive is tailored to meet their individual needs and is designed to give them the skills to improve their life chances.

“It aims to support the re-integration of learners into full-time education in school, further education or employment.

“The school prides itself in making a difference to our students’ lives — therefore we wanted a figure that echoed our beliefs and vision. As a result we decided upon Mary Higgs, nee Kingsland, with the permission of her great-granddaughter.”

Mary, the daughter of a congregational minister, was born in Wiltshire, in 1854. The family moved to Bradford when she was a child. She was the first woman to gain a degree in natural science at Cambridge and only the third to attend the university.

After finishing her studies she was a schoolteacher before marrying Rev Thomas Kilpin-Higgs, the vicar at Greenacres Congregational Church.

She was involved in a wide range of religious and philanthropic organisations in the town and friends with Dame Sarah Lees and her daughter, Marjorey, who funded many of her projects.

They established the Beautiful Oldham Society in response to claims that the town was one of grime and devastation.

One of its legacies was Mary’s idea for a garden suburb.

Concerned about the scale of poverty she saw, Mary and carried out a study of the lives of homeless people in Oldham —disguising herself as a tramp to visit hostels and refuges.

Her report — Three Night’s in Women’s Lodging Houses — was published in 1906 followed by Glimpses Into The Abyss a year later.

Mary devoted the rest of her life to social work in Oldham and was awarded an OBE shortly before her death in 1937.

“It is fitting that the great work Mary achieved and the many lives she touched is celebrated in the school name,” added Ms Thompson.