Among the founders were Margaret Gaskell, daughter of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, Augustus Samuel Wilkins, Professor of Classics at the University of Manchester, Edward Donner, chairman of a Manchester shipping company, William Kennedy, president of The Manchester Association for Promoting the Education of Women, and Abigail Behrens, who with her husband, Edward Behrens, helped to establish a Chair of Education at the University of Manchester.

At that time, most people regarded the education of girls as either unnecessary or undesirable. The founders of Manchester High School, however, believed that girls had a right to education and that they and society as a whole would be the better for it. The founders described the essential aims of the school as being: ’To impart to the scholars the very best education which can be given and to fit them for any future which may be before them.’ They wanted to ‘provide for Manchester’s daughters what has been provided without stint for Manchester’s sons.’

But they need not have worried! When Manchester High School for Girls opened for the first time on 19 January 1874 parents simply poured in! 60 girls enrolled and a hansom cab had to be ordered to take the heavy weight of gold brought in as fees to the Union Bank on Oxford Street. The termly fees at that time were 4 guineas for under-14s and 5 guineas for over-14s.

The School soon outgrew the original premises and the governors bought a plot of land in Dover Street and built a new school in 1881 (picture left); this building is now part of the University of Manchester.