Kitty Anderson (headmistress)

Dame Katherine Anderson, (4 July 1903 – 15 July 1979), known as Kitty Anderson, was a British schoolteacher. She was headmistress of the North London Collegiate School from 1945 to 1965.

Early life and education

Katherine Anderson was born on 4 July 1903, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, the eldest child and only daughter of three children born to John Herbert Anderson, a chartered accountant, and his wife, Lizzie (née Dawson). The family moved to Middlesbrough, where Kitty attended the High School for Girls in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, where she became head girl. She was the first girl from the school to go up to university and attended Royal Holloway College, University of London to read history where she obtained a BA.

In 1925, she obtained a teaching diploma from the London Day Training College, now the Institute of Education and part of the University of London. In 1926, she taught at Craven Street secondary school in Hull. In 1930, she returned to Royal Holloway as a Christie scholar and received a PhD in 1933 in Elizabethan history, 'The treatment of vagrancy and the relief of the poor and destitute in the Tudor period, based upon the local records of London to 1552 and Hull to 1576'.

Career in education

She then taught at Burlington School for Girls, London before taking a position as headmistress of King's Norton Grammar School, Birmingham in 1939. In 1944, she became head of the North London Collegiate School until retirement in 1965.

As headmistress she became a noted figure in the educational world.