THE girls of Bolton School were celebrating International Women’s Day today by remembering how pioneering women won them the same educational rights as boys.

While many schools were established as early as the 1700s, it was not until the mid-1800s that girls’ education really began to arrive thanks to the campaigning actions of women such as Frances Buss, Dorothea Beale and Emily Davies who founded Girton College in Cambridge.

Bolton School Girls’ Division was part of this new era, founded in 1877 as Bolton Girls’ Day School.

Headmistress Gill Richards believes it is the hard-won nature of the battle for girls’ education that has led so many modern day girls’ schools in England to establish links with girls and young women in less fortunate circumstances.

She said: “The lives and roles of UK women have changed immeasurably in the last 200 years and it is now important that pupils help fellow women and girls in less fortunate circumstances, both at home and abroad.”

Bolton School is involved in numerous programmes to help young women everywhere. This summer, a group of Year 11 girls will travel to Tanzania to meet the Maasai tribe that they have befriended through a Skype link-up in their geography lesson and via a charity called LivLife, which has set up an educational centre for the Maasai. Bolton girls have also visited India and helped changed the lives of those living in poverty through the charity SKCV.

Little Lever School is also marking the day by organising fundraising events to improve conditions for women around the world.