Miss Violet Turner
Appointed to the role of Headmistress of the Plymouth High School for Girls in the autumn of 1931, and from the start she signalled her commitment to girls staying at school to achieve the best possible educational qualifications as preparation for their subsequent lives. She continued the tradition of holding the Plymouth Education Authority-sponsored University Extension Lectures at the school, and also enthusiastically supported her pupils in keeping physically fit through sport. She insisted her role was to provide the best possible context in which future citizens could be trained by sponsoring an attitude where the ‘natural reasonableness’ of the girls would respond to the challenges of both learning and acquiring discipline and self control – it was education as a training for life, and not education simply for the sake of learning. Consequently, she placed a great emphasis on developing a spirit of social service to the community in pupils established by her predecessor Miss Potter. Funds were raised through bazaars, school plays and concerts for the benefit of local hospitals and enterprises like the Astor day nurseries. Miss Turner was a large lady in all senses of the word apparently. During WW2, she was headmistress in charge of the Emergency High School for girls, giving her supervision over the unevacuated girls from the three grammar schools in the city, brought together for the duration of the war. Miss Turner collaborated with Miss Jago of the Technical School for Housecraft, with the Lawrence Road premises serving as a communal feeding centre after the Blitz, serving meals using the school’s kitchens as well as being sent out from Portland Square. Post-war, she continued as headmistress into the 1950s. She was noted for her kindness as well as her enthusiasm for girls’ education, in particular the idea that girls should never settle for opportunities in life which had ‘no prospect for advancement’ of some kind.