As Highgate celebrates its 460th birthday in 2025, we spoke to School Archivist Nicole Gross about her role and why it’s important to preserve our school’s history for the community and future generations.
Can you tell us about your role and what it involves?
My role is to look after the historical materials that relate to the school, including their conservation and making sure they’re kept in appropriate storage conditions. Another important aspect is cataloguing the items and creating access to them for all the different communities involved with Highgate, whether it’s pupils, parents, alumni, the local community or anyone researching topics that relate to their personal or family history. It’s lovely to see how people are connected to the school and it’s our way of opening that window to the past and telling their story.
How did you become an Archivist?
Being an Archivist is quite a niche job and not many people know what it involves! My background is originally in PR and during a career break I had a rethink about what I wanted to do. I’ve always loved history and finding out about the past and decided to do some work experience in archives at the National Theatre and the Jewish Museum. I found it really interesting and went back to university to study for a Masters in Archives and Records Management at UCL and during research for my dissertation I discovered more about school archives. I’ve been working at Highgate since 2020 and enjoy preserving the school’s heritage.
Why is it important for Highgate School to keep an archive?
At Highgate, we’re fortunate to have an eclectic archive of around 300 metres worth of materials dating back 460 years to its foundation in 1565. The school has had an official archivist since 2014 and prior to that it would have been volunteers or staff such as Theodore Mallinson, who was an avid collector and helped create the extensive archive that we have today. It’s important to keep the archive because the records explain how the school evolved and we can see the historic moments that have happened up until the present day.
How does the archive help to bring history into the classroom?
One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is when I take archive materials to pupils as part of their learning. In Pre-Prep, we have a session where Year 2 come into the archive room and we can show them a photo-book of when their school opened. We have workshops in the Junior School about the Tudors and the Second World War that ties in with the curriculum and what pupils are learning in the classroom to bring history to life. We use objects like old school uniforms that pupils enjoy trying on or they can ring an old school bell.
In Senior School we have a Year 7 literary tour of the School Museum, there’s a British Empire workshop for Year 12 and in Year 9 I’ll focus on the First World War to coincide with their trip to the battlefields in France and Belgium. We use the archive to show them how the war impacted the school through letters, diaries and photographs. I use an image of the school football team taken before the war and tell pupils how many of them fought and how many didn’t return, and that’s a really impactful way to illustrate. We also have lessons in the school museum and one of the Thursday Lunchtime Activities is History Explorers where pupils can come along to volunteer in the archive and interview some of our alumni for our oral history recordings.
We also have a unique art collection and probably one of the most well-known artists is Kyffin Williams who was Art Master here from 1944-73. He was one of Wales’ finest artists but also inspired pupils such as Anthony Green to become artists. We hold an annual lecture in Williams’ memory and our collection is available for pupils studying Fine Art or History of Art to use as a resource.
What is the oldest item in the archive and are there any unusual things that have been kept?
The oldest item dates back to 29 January 1565 which is the Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I. This granted permission to Sir Roger Cholmeley, the founder and architect of the school to proceed with his plans. The document is handwritten in Latin and the large letter E in the corner is an etching of the Queen. When I show the Charter to pupils and explain how long this would have taken and how unique it is to Highgate, it’s remarkable that they are seeing a piece of real history.
Another interesting item from the 1570s is the Governor’s minute books which tell us exactly what was happening in the school at the time. This has the first drawing of the school shield which is almost identical to the one on our uniforms today. The top part of the shield is Sir Roger Cholmeley’s coat of arms, with the knight’s helmet. The bottom is the griffin taken from Sir William Cordell’s family shield, he was a founding governor of the school and Speaker of the House of Commons.
One of the more unusual objects is a piece of shrapnel from a V1 flying bomb that fell on the school playing fields in 1944. Luckily no-one was seriously hurt but it caused a massive crater and damaged the surrounding school buildings. Some of the shrapnel was collected and we show it as a physical artefact when we talk to pupils about the Second World War – they are fascinated that something like that happened here in their school.
How can people from outside the school community engage with the archive?
The school archive is very much a public resource, and we share our history with the wider community at Museum open days throughout the year, local events like Lauderdale House Heritage Fair, Highgate Festival and Open House London. We work with partnership schools taking our ‘Museum in a Box’ into classrooms and we host pupils coming into the Museum for their local history project.
The school museum was opened in the Old Tabernacle on Southwood Lane (a former Baptist Chapel) to celebrate the school’s 450th anniversary in 2015. We have some fantastic items on display that tell the history of the school through themes such as drama, science or sport. It’s a way for us to connect the school to the local community and members of the public can get in contact to arrange a visit.
If you would like to contact us about donating a Highgate school related item to our archive or if you have an enquiry about our history please contact: archives@highgateschool.org.uk.
Find out more about our school’s history here.
