De Sion school photo album

A photo album found in a Brighton junk shop was one of the first items we successfully repatriated almost 20 years ago and so became one of the key inspirations for History Reunited.

Our Lady of Sion School is an inter-denominational, independent school for girls and boys in Worthing, West Sussex. Back in the 1930s it was very much a girls’ school.

“Inscribed in pencil “Inhabitants of my school” the album contained around 30 photographs and covered the years 1930-33. With many photographs of the girls (many named), the school dogs Rascal and Ruff, as well as the garden fete of 1932, it was obvious this historic item should be reunited with the school.

On receipt of the album Judie Chambers, Librarian of Our Lady of Sion School, Worthing at the time, said, “Thanks you for reuniting us with this photo album. It is an absolute gem!” Representing the alumni of the school, Nita Whitehorn also got in touch… “For the school to have been reunited with yet another piece of its history is truly remarkable. As Mrs Chambers may have explained, they have very few records of those days, as the convent was staffed entirely in the early years by nuns, who would have considered it wrong to publicise themselves in any way or even to have kept records. So we really are at the ‘Last Chance Saloon’ with my generation and a few older ‘girls’ to supply some memories.”

Highlights from the photo album

“Babies” in the grounds.

Sceptre Drill

Babies Band, 1932

Girls in the garden.