IN 1877 a group of public-spirited Bolton citizens inspired the foundation of a Young Ladies' Day School, which was quickly renamed Bolton High School for Girls.

Housed in a room of the Mechanics' Institute in Mawdsley Street, the Day School opened its doors to 22 girls on October 1, 1877.

The headmistress was Miss Eliza Kean, the committee that established the school having advertised for an "efficient lady teacher" who was required to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, English, history and needlework; French and Latin languages were also preferred. She was also required to "organise the school".

For all this she received £100 per year - a huge salary for a woman in those days.

The school provided a first class education for girls and the earliest pupils were among the first women to go to university and enter the professions.

Pupil numbers steadily rose during the school's first three decades and by the 1890s it had moved to larger premises on Park Road in Bolton.

In 1913 Sir William Hesketh Lever, the first Viscount Leverhulme, gave a generous joint endowment to the High School for Girls and the Bolton Grammar School for Boys on condition that the two should be equal partners known as Bolton School (Boys' and Girls' Divisions). This is the "goodly heritage" to which Bolton School Girls' Division's School Prayer refers.

The tradition of excellence continues in the context of the much wider opportunities available to girls today.

The school is a centre of excellence, offering superb facilities and teaching and is one of the largest independent girls' schools in the UK.

Results at GCSE and A Level are among the best in the country and more than 96 per cent of the Sixth Form goes on to higher education, including 10 per cent to 15 per cent who gain admission to Oxford and Cambridge each year.