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HAVERGAL COLLEGE
A
mong the assorted memorabilia of Havergal’s archives are two
century-old lace collars—perhaps the most tangible connections
we have to the school’s First Principal.
For archivist Debra Latcham, however, it is Ellen Knox’s letters and
Ludemus
editorials that most vividly conjure the woman who helped
found the school’s rich history and traditions.
“When I started organizing her archives, I just sat and read,” Latcham
says. “Her letters are wonderful—you can really sense her personality
and what she expected of the girls, that somehow they would better
the world.”
Ellen Mary Knox arrived in Toronto on August 25, 1894, with just
two weeks to prepare a new school at 350 Jarvis St. for the arrival of
seven Boarders and 31 Day girls. The Board of Governors’ search for
a “lady principal” had led them to the 36-year-old student teacher
at Cheltenham Ladies’ College—a vicar’s daughter who had earned
second-class honours in History and first-class honours in English
in the Oxford exams. Within days of receiving their offer, she had
cabled her reply: “Knox accepts.”
Contemporary accounts reveal an enlightened and ambitious young
educator with a lively sense of humour, an indomitable spirit and an
unwavering dedication to women’s education. She doubled Havergal’s
enrolment within her first year and soon after appointed a new
generation of staff, including Edith Nainby and Marian Wood.
The school’s early years were, in Knox’s own words, “a perilous
undertaking.” Her first sight of the school was inauspicious: “The one
spot of cheerfulness was a loaded crabapple tree under the staircase
window, making a splash of brightness in otherwise dispiriting
surroundings.”
She adapted that tree into an outdoor classroom, revealing the
can-do spirit that would see her through the setback of a devastating
fire a few years later. One young male student, embarrassed by being
First Principal Ellen Knox
A Woman of Rigorous Standards and Genuine Empathy
Trilby Kent, Class of 2001
Knox with Archdeacon Dr. Henry John Cody, Rector of St. Paul’s
Anglican Church.
Traditions