The beret was worn by Joan Fonge when she was a pupil at Thame Girls Grammar School 1928 -1933.
Joan was the daughter of Walter Fonge and Mary Edith Pearce and lived at Waterperry. She was awarded a County Scholarship when she took the Local Education Authority’s Grammar School Entrance Examination in 1928, which meant she was able to attend the Thame Girls’ School for no fee. She was a day girl and so would have had to walk between Waterperry and Waterstock (about 1.5 miles) to catch the bus each morning and make the return journey at the end of the school day She was awarded the Oxford School Certificate with credit in 5 subjects (English, History, French, Mathematics and Botany) in 1933, the year she left school.
Joan then worked on her father’s farm until she married Edward Jefferies in 1942 and they moved away to run their own farm at Barton Hartshorn in North Buckinghamshire.
Thame Girls’ Grammar School was established in Thame in 1887, originally in buildings in Church Row once used by Lord Williams School but then in 1908, in more extensive buildings in the High Street, once the Mansion House of the Knollys family and recently vacated by Oxford County School for Boys.
The school had two principals, Miss Hockley and Miss Messenger, who ran the school from 1917 until they retired in 1948. The school then closed and in 1965 the buildings were demolished and replaced with a supermarket. The girls were accommodated at Wood Eaton Manor temporarily but transferred to a permanent base at Holton Park Girls’ Grammar School, Wheatley, which opened in 1949.
The beret is displayed in the Recent Donations case.