Located in Leicester, Regent College had a long institutional history stretching back well before its time as a sixth form college. Originally operating as Wyggeston Girls’ Grammar School, the school was selective, admitting pupils on the basis of an entrance examination. It later became the Wyggeston Collegiate Sixth Form College in 1976, before being renamed Regent College in 1996. In 2018, the college was merged into the nearby Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College, bringing its independent existence to a close.
Notable Former Pupils
The school’s alumni list covers a remarkable range of fields. Biddy Baxter MBE, who attended between 1944 and 1951, went on to create the long-running BBC children’s programme Blue Peter. Actress Joanna David studied there before a career on stage and screen; she later married actor Edward Fox and is the mother of actors Emilia Fox and Freddie Fox. Poet and novelist Elaine Feinstein was a pupil from 1942 to 1949. Faith Jaques illustrated books by Roald Dahl and designed the Royal Mail Christmas stamps in 1978. Ruth Henig, Baroness Henig, chaired the Security Industry Authority from 2007 to 2013, while Dinah Nichols CB chaired Keep Britain Tidy from 2012 to 2016. Olympic diver Helen Koppell competed in the 1970s before relocating to Canada as an anaesthetist. Mary Stott, a Guardian journalist and feminist, attended from 1918 to 1925.
Former Teachers of Note
Ruth Railton, a music teacher at the school in the mid-1940s, conceived the idea for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Clara Collet, a social reformer who campaigned for women’s working conditions and an acquaintance of Karl Marx, taught at the school from 1878 to 1885. Historian Ruth Bird also taught there, as did Robert Purdy MBE in Art and Design.