Blue plaque unveiled to first headteacher of Newbury Girls' School
A commemorative blue plaque has been unveiled to honour the first headmistress of Newbury Girls’ School.
The plaque to Esther Jane Luker (1872-1969) was unveiled at a former St Bartholomew’s School building - now flats on the corner of Andover Road and Buckingham Road - last Thursday (January 20).
Jane Luker, as she was more generally known, served as headmistress from 1904 to 1933 at the first Newbury school to offer secondary education for girls to university standard.
She was a Cambridge graduate who sought academic excellence for her pupils and encouraged a love of art and music, travel, sport and community service.
Newbury Town Council’s 14th blue plaque was unveiled on the north side of the building by the mayor of Newbury, Billy Drummond.
Vice-chair of the Heritage Working Group, Nigel Foot, said: “We are very grateful to Val Pollitt for advising us on Jane Luker’s life and achievements, to the Newbury Society for generously contributing £100 to the cost of the plaque, and to the owners and building managers of Luker House, Estates and Management Limited and FirstPort respectively, for kindly agreeing to the erection of the plaque.
“The time of foundation of Newbury Girls’ School was a period of rapid development of girls’ secondary education, an essential step in the development of our society, and Jane Luker set the school on a firm foundation.”
Newbury Girls’ School was set up in 1904 by Berkshire County Council and began with 39 pupils in rooms in the Technical Institute in Northbrook Street.
The school grew and moved to a four acre site on the corner of Andover Road and Buckingham Road in 1909, which has since become known as Luker Hall.
By the 1920s students of Newbury Girls’ School were gaining entrance scholarships to Cambridge.
After Ms Luker's retirement in 1945 it became Newbury County Girls’ Grammar School and was merged with St Bartholomew’s School in 1975.
The Luker premises were sold for conversion into flats in 2011 when St Bartholomew’s constructed a new school building as part of the Ad Lucem project.
