The Legacy of St.

Trinian’s
 About St. Trinian’s
• St Trinian's is a fictional girls' boarding school, the creation of English
cartoonist Ronald Searle, that later became the subject of a popular
series of comedy films.
• The first cartoon appeared in 1942, but shortly afterwards Searle had
to fulfill his military service where he was captured at Singapore and
spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of the Japanese. After the war,
in 1946 he started making new cartoons about the girls, but the
content was a lot darker in comparison with the previous years.
 Books and Films
• Hurrah for St Trinian's (1948)
• The Female Approach (1950)
• Back to the Slaughterhouse (1952)
• The Terror of St Trinian’s or Angela's Prince Charming (1952 - text by
Timothy Shy, pen-name for D. B. Wyndham-Lewis)
• Souls in Torment (1953)

• The Belles of St Trinian's (1954, the first film)

• Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957, the second film)
• The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (1960, the third film)
• The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966, the final film of the quartet)
• The Wildcats of St Trinian's (1980, with Maureen Lipman taking on the
Joyce Grenfell role)
• St Trinian's (2007)
• St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009)
The Real St. Trinian’s

• This was the original school for St. Trinian’s

until World War II.
• In 1925 the school moved from Palmerston
Road to St Leonard's House near Dalkeith
Road, and at the beginning of the Second
World War moved again to Gala House in
Galashiels. The school was closed in 1946
after the retirement of Miss Fraser Lee.
• It is said that a family by the name of
Johnston, whose two daughters attended St
Trinnean's, were evacuated to Kirkcudbright,
where they met sapper Ronald Searle. He
drew a cartoon depicting his idea of the
school attended by the girls. Searle spent
part of the war in a Japanese POWcamp.
After the war Lilliput magazine published the
cartoons. The first film was made in 1954.