History

• Theodora Philpot founded Elmwood, she said, as a school where children could grow “joyous, strong, companionable and free.” Her intention was to exert “... an open, kind and generous influence in the School, forming year by year a growing band of ‘extroverts,’ those people who love their fellows, and pull together, and share.”
• Her husband, Hamlet Philpot was teaching locally and, when the old Keefer farmhouse fell vacant on Buena Vista, Mrs. Philpot saw an opportunity. She rented the farm, moved her family into the old house and founded her second school. She had originally intended to establish a preparatory (or elementary) school for young boys; in fact, the school was co-educational from the very beginning.
• Starting off with only four students, Mrs Philpot at first did all the teaching herself – soon with the help of a part-time French mistress. By its second year, however, the number of students had increased tenfold. Rockcliffe already had, in Ashbury, a school for its sons; but local parents were concerned about their daughters. Mrs Philpot hired new teachers and settled in to enjoy the success of her venture.
• Elmwood receives its first boarder in 1917, Hume Cronyn, at age 7, who later went on to become an actor.

• Enrolment rose steeply following the establishment of the school. However, resources for expansion were lacking. When the farm came up for sale in 1919, Mrs Philpot turned to two parents – Lilias Southam and Ethel Fauquier. They bought the land, but in the end they had a different vision for the school. When Mrs Philpot departed soon after, the owners appointed teacher Edith Buck in her place, and Elmwood changed. With a new name and a new building, Elmwood set out to become a school for girls modelled on the English pattern.
• The new headmistress, Ms Edith Buck was an Englishwoman who succeeded in working closely and harmoniously with the new owners for a period of over 30 years. It was under her formidable leadership that the school adopted many of its symbols, organisations and a new uniform. She was also the first headmistress to preside over a boarding school.
• Ms Buck set in place many Elmwood traditions, such as a prefect system and the three original Houses.

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• Though Elmwood remained rather old-fashioned in the post-war period – small, local and deeply rooted in Anglican tradition – it benefitted from the leadership of a new kind of headmistress – university-educated women from Cambridge and Oxford in England.
• Elmwood in the 1950s and ’60s remained a very small school, with somewhere around 100 students, most of them local. Life had a quiet regularity to it. Every day began with Prayers, and classes were punctuated by the ringing of a handbell and by a sit-down lunch held in the dining room. There was great emphasis on courtesy and deference.
• In the “old days,” the academic emphasis for girls was on the humanities – literature, history, art and languages. That began to change after the war, when a bequest from Lilias Southam’s father – businessman and inventor, Thomas Ahearn – allowed the construction of a new wing with a modern laboratory. When Mrs. Buck retired in 1951, a Cambridge-trained mathematician arrived to lead the school.
• One of the things that distinguished Elmwood in the post-war period was the boarding school. The old farmhouse was demolished in 1925, and a large new building erected in its place. This was more than a school – it was home to the headmistress and her husband, a cook and maids, as well as some 25 boarders living in small dormitories under the watchful eye of a school matron.
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• As women faced new opportunities and challenges in the late 20th century, there was a new demand for single-gender education. Elmwood began to grow in population, facilities, faculty and through the adoption of new tools and programmes. The IB was a good fit for Elmwood, where the school body included many diplomatic children. The programme was offered first in only a couple of grades, but it grew over the years to encompass every part of the school.
• In the last decade of the 20th century, the leadership at Elmwood fully grasped the degree to which technology was changing the world and they recognized the educational implications. A leading edge laptop program was adopted – ultimately furnishing every girl with her own machine – to replace the computer labs of the 1980s, and teachers trained in ways to integrate technology into the classroom.

Elmwood, in its second century, has changed in many ways, modernized, built new buildings and adopted new programmes. Yet even as it has evolved, it has remained true to the original vision of its founder – to create young women who are “joyous, strong, companionable and free.”