Westbourne School for Girls

Westbourne School was founded in 1877 as Westbourne Gardens School and owed much in its early days to the Levack sisters, who hoped ‘to produce young women with as much good influence in matters of morals, speech and elegant living as seemed possible’. They are commemorated in the Levack Biology laboratory in today’s Glasgow Academy.

In 1920 the school moved from Westbourne Gardens to Kelvinside House in Beaconsfield Road, where it remained until evacuated in 1939 to Biggar. At the end of the war, Kelvinside House was still in military hands and the school gradually acquired Nos 1, 3 and 5 Winton Drive, close by. These houses became home to the Senior School and Kelvinside House to the Junior School.

In 1951 the school became a limited company, its first Chairman Lord Fraser of Allander. One of the houses of the co-educational Glasgow Academy bears his name in recognition of the time and interest which he invested in Westbourne.

Westbourne’s uniform at the time of its merger with Glasgow Academy in 1991 included a purple jumper and blazer, so purple was added to the traditional Academy colours when a new uniform was devised. The refurbished accommodation in Colebrooke Terrace in which the Academy’s Prep School girls and boys had their lessons was christened Westbourne House to keep alive the name of the school which helped to bring co-education to The Academy.