WHEN Our Lady’s School in Abingdon was founded by the Religious Order of the Sisters of Mercy, Queen Victoria was on the throne and the Crimean War had just ended.

On Saturday, former and present pupils and staff gathered at the co-educational Catholic school, in Radley Road, to celebrate its 150th birthday with a reunion picnic.

Organisers estimated between 350 and 500 people attended the celebrattions .

Half a dozen students from the 1930s were there, while others flew in from New Zealand, Australia and Trinidad.

Two former headteachers – Glynne Butt and Sister Monica Sheehy, one of the Sisters of Mercy – gave welcome speeches, along with present headteacher Lynne Renwick.

She said: “When Sister Claire Moore founded the school, I am sure that she realised she was planting seeds for the future.

“She was a true visionary – a woman of her time – who on her return from the Crimea, where she had nursed alongside Florence Nightingale – had the insight to lay the foundations of the school.

“At that time, in 1860, the vast majority of the population had very few rights – let alone women.

“The right to vote for all men was yet to come and for women was later still.

“The freedom for women to own property in their own right was as yet a far- off dream, and, good heavens, it was not until the 1970s that women enjoyed equality with men in terms of equal pay.

“However, what the Sisters of Mercy achieved was to instill into our forbears the gift of learning.”

At the reunion, guests were shown around the school by present pupils.

Maggie Shellard, PA to the headteacher, said: “The school has changed immensely from when it was first a convent school.”

She added: “We had families at the reunion who included grandparents, parents and children – all three generations – who went to the school. It was a lovely day.”