The Collections Story - The Queen's School Archive
New Home for The Queen’s School Archive
“My memory of Diana goes back more than forty years, to the time when I first joined the staff of The Queen’s School in September 1915. Even as an upper middle schoolgirl she was outstanding because of her keenness and enthusiasm in all she did.”
Miss Nedham, Headmistress - in Have Mynde school magazine, 1956
On 18th September 1912, 11 year old Diana Beck started her secondary school education at The Queen’s School, Chester. Her name is recorded in the admissions index alongside Kathleen, Ethel, Doris and 16 more new girls who started that day. Any nervousness she may have felt in her new surroundings must have soon passed, as the prize giving ceremony programmes show her winning countless awards for botany, natural sciences, economics, arithmetic, and painting. She is photographed competing at the Aberdare Cup Tennis competition in 1952 as a member of the old girls’ team. Diana Beck went on to become the first British female neurosurgeon and saved many lives, including that of Winnie the Pooh author A.A Milne. Diana’s story is just one amongst thousands captured in The Queen’s School’s amazing archive.
A former student contacted us for advice on caring for the archive collection that had accumulated over the past 100 years. A visit to the Record Office resulted in a decision to deposit the collection with us, to be available for more people to enjoy and be kept in the best conditions to make sure the School’s memory lives on.
The transfer began and over the past couple of months we have been cataloguing and repackaging records lovingly gathered by the School as a proud record of its history and achievements. The Queen’s School welcomed its first pupils in 1878, and in 2028 we expect to help the School celebrate its 150th anniversary. We will be working together to showcase the collection in our new facility and returning a selection for display in the School. You can discover the collection’s catalogue online, and experience it in person when we open our Chester centre in 2026.
Although we are not open to visitors at the moment, we will still be taking in new collections throughout 2025.
by Adam Shaw, Archivist
