Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

Junior School Christmas Concert The Junior School has its own celebrations, with students presenting charming Christmas-themed songs and stories at its annual concerts.

Kindergarten Students Sing “Little Elf” Christmas Concert, 2015

Only in looking back, Miss Dennys believed, would each generation be able to maintain the spirit and vision on which the school was founded and upon which it had flourished since 1894. And only in this way could a path forward be forged while at the same time maintaining the essence of the school.

Founders’ Day Service

Each year near the end of April, Havergal students, faculty and staff gather to celebrate the school’s impressive history, particularly those individuals whose vision of a school for girls prompted them to undertake a daunting task in the last decade of the 19th century. As Havergal: Celebrating a Century tells us, Samuel Blake, the first Board Chair, was called “the real founder of Havergal.” As Havergal: Celebrating a Century reveals, “by the summer of 1894, twenty-one men, many of whom had supported the founding of Ridley College, had agreed to take over Morvyn House [which had for many years housed a well-respected school] and to guarantee a fund to cover any deficit in the first year’s operations. The school would have a new name: Havergal Hall.” 21 The traditional Founders’ Day Service began with Mary Dennys, a student at Havergal who became one of its teachers and served as its sixth principal from 1975 to 1985. Given her long connection with the school, she understood the importance of celebrating the past. As Susan Pink wrote in the Spring 2014 edition of Torch :

Processional Hymn Founders’ Day, 2014

Founders’ Day Playlist Founders’ Day, 2016

Like Carol Service, the Founders’ Day Service has been held in a few venues: in the Upper School in what is now called Brenda Robson Hall and at St. Clement’s Church, with Upper School and older Junior School students walking to St. Clement’s, as students once did to St. Paul’s. It is appropriate that since 2001, the Founders’ Day Service, like Carol Service, has been held at St. Paul’s.

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