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St Trinian's School
St Trinian's is a British gag cartoon comic strip series, created and drawn by Ronald Searle from 1946 until 1952. The cartoons all centre on a boarding school for girls, where the teachers are sadists and the girls are juvenile delinquents. This black comedy series was Searle's most famous work and inspired a popular series of comedy films.
Searle published his first St Trinian's School cartoon in 1941 in the magazine Lilliput. He was captured at Singapore in 1942 and spent the rest of the Second World War as a prisoner of the Japanese. After the war, in 1946 Searle started making new cartoons about the girls, but the content was much darker compared to the earlier years.
The school is the antithesis of the type of posh girls' boarding school depicted by Enid Blyton or Angela Brazil; its female pupils are bad and often well armed, and mayhem is rife. The schoolmistresses are also disreputable. Cartoons often showed dead bodies of girls who had been murdered with pitchforks or succumbed to violent team sports, sometimes with vultures circling; girls drank, gambled and smoked. It is reputed that the gymslip style of dress worn by the girls was closely modelled on the school uniform of James Allen's Girls' School (JAGS) in Dulwich, which Searle's daughter Kate attended.
In the 1950s, films were developed that were based on the cartoon series. These comedies implied that the girls at the school were the daughters of dubious characters, such as gangsters, crooks, and shady bookmakers. The institution is often referred to as a "female borstal", as if it were a reform school.
During 1941 Searle had gone to the artists' community in the village of Kirkcudbright. Whilst visiting the family Johnston, he made a drawing to please their two schoolgirl daughters, Cécilé and Pat. (Their school had been evacuated to New Gala House in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders owing to the war.) Searle was puzzled as to why two schoolgirls should seem so keen to return to their school, an Academy for Young Ladies in Dalkeith Road known as St Trinnean's. The school was of the experimental sort, and allowed its pupils a certain degree of freedom and autonomy in their own educational choices. The school's original building is now part of the University of Edinburgh.
Searle's St Trinian's was based on two private girls' schools in Cambridge – Perse School for Girls, now known as the co-educational Stephen Perse Foundation, and St Mary's School for girls, a Catholic school established by the Sisters of Mary Ward. Growing up in Cambridge, Searle regularly saw the girls on their way to and from school; they originally inspired his cartoons and characters. The Perse School for Girls' Archive area holds several original St Trinian's books, given to the school by Ronald Searle. He also based the school partly on the former Cambridgeshire High School for Girls (now Long Road Sixth Form College).
During his BBC interview Searle agreed that the cruelty depicted at St Trinian's derived partly from his captivity during World War II but stressed that he included it only because the ignoble aspect to warfare in general had become more widely known.
In the 1950s, a series of St Trinian's comedy films were made, featuring well-known British actors, including Alastair Sim (in drag as the headmistress, and also playing her brother); George Cole as spiv "Flash Harry", Joyce Grenfell as Sgt Ruby Gates, a beleaguered policewoman; and Richard Wattis and Eric Barker as the civil servants at the Ministry of Education for whom the school is a source of constant frustration and nervous breakdowns. Searle's cartoons appeared in the films' main title design.
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St Trinian's School
St Trinian's is a British gag cartoon comic strip series, created and drawn by Ronald Searle from 1946 until 1952. The cartoons all centre on a boarding school for girls, where the teachers are sadists and the girls are juvenile delinquents. This black comedy series was Searle's most famous work and inspired a popular series of comedy films.
Searle published his first St Trinian's School cartoon in 1941 in the magazine Lilliput. He was captured at Singapore in 1942 and spent the rest of the Second World War as a prisoner of the Japanese. After the war, in 1946 Searle started making new cartoons about the girls, but the content was much darker compared to the earlier years.
The school is the antithesis of the type of posh girls' boarding school depicted by Enid Blyton or Angela Brazil; its female pupils are bad and often well armed, and mayhem is rife. The schoolmistresses are also disreputable. Cartoons often showed dead bodies of girls who had been murdered with pitchforks or succumbed to violent team sports, sometimes with vultures circling; girls drank, gambled and smoked. It is reputed that the gymslip style of dress worn by the girls was closely modelled on the school uniform of James Allen's Girls' School (JAGS) in Dulwich, which Searle's daughter Kate attended.
In the 1950s, films were developed that were based on the cartoon series. These comedies implied that the girls at the school were the daughters of dubious characters, such as gangsters, crooks, and shady bookmakers. The institution is often referred to as a "female borstal", as if it were a reform school.
During 1941 Searle had gone to the artists' community in the village of Kirkcudbright. Whilst visiting the family Johnston, he made a drawing to please their two schoolgirl daughters, Cécilé and Pat. (Their school had been evacuated to New Gala House in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders owing to the war.) Searle was puzzled as to why two schoolgirls should seem so keen to return to their school, an Academy for Young Ladies in Dalkeith Road known as St Trinnean's. The school was of the experimental sort, and allowed its pupils a certain degree of freedom and autonomy in their own educational choices. The school's original building is now part of the University of Edinburgh.
Searle's St Trinian's was based on two private girls' schools in Cambridge – Perse School for Girls, now known as the co-educational Stephen Perse Foundation, and St Mary's School for girls, a Catholic school established by the Sisters of Mary Ward. Growing up in Cambridge, Searle regularly saw the girls on their way to and from school; they originally inspired his cartoons and characters. The Perse School for Girls' Archive area holds several original St Trinian's books, given to the school by Ronald Searle. He also based the school partly on the former Cambridgeshire High School for Girls (now Long Road Sixth Form College).
During his BBC interview Searle agreed that the cruelty depicted at St Trinian's derived partly from his captivity during World War II but stressed that he included it only because the ignoble aspect to warfare in general had become more widely known.
In the 1950s, a series of St Trinian's comedy films were made, featuring well-known British actors, including Alastair Sim (in drag as the headmistress, and also playing her brother); George Cole as spiv "Flash Harry", Joyce Grenfell as Sgt Ruby Gates, a beleaguered policewoman; and Richard Wattis and Eric Barker as the civil servants at the Ministry of Education for whom the school is a source of constant frustration and nervous breakdowns. Searle's cartoons appeared in the films' main title design.