The Holy Trinity Convent school was founded in 1857 by Mother Marion Hughes, foundress of the Society of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, who also founded the Oxford Industrial school. The school was first housed at no. 10 St. Giles and attended by boys, girls and infants (attendance figures for 1872 were 6 boys, 31 girls and 71 infants). After a financial appeal a new school was built behind the convent in 1876. It became the parochial girls' school of St. Philip and St. James' parish, locally known as St. Denys's. As a 'Middle Class Day School' it was to provide, according to a brochure written around that time , a 'good and sound English Education' with a 'high-principled moral tone' to the daughters of College servants and small tradesmen. Providing for 195 girls in Winchester Road it thus complemented the parochial boys and infants school (see S216/1).
In 1926 juniors were transferred to St. Giles' junior mixed and infant school, St. Denys's turning a school for senior girls only. The school was handed over to the parish in 1945, when the Sisters of the Holy and Undivided Trinity left their convent in Woodstock Road. The Ministry of Education now agreed to re-register the school under the name of St. Denys's, as it was called unofficially since 1876. One committee managed both St. Denys's girls' and SS Philip and James boys and infants schools. These parish schools ceased to exist, when seniors were transferred to the newly opened Cherwell Secondary school in 1963 and juniors to the Bishop Kirk junior mixed school in 1965.
The records of this collection, which cover the period 1863 - 1959, were previously catalogued as Oxford City T/SAd 18, TSL 29a-c, T/SM 43-44, T/S Misc 45-52 and T/S Photo 9 (a conspectus of old and new references can be found in the back of this folder). Further records were deposited as part of Acc 5159 in July 2003.
Catalogued by Heleen van Rossum June 1993 with additions by Alison Smith in June 2016