Find your ancestors in Edge Hill University Student Records

What can these records tell me?

With every search result, you will be able to explore images of the original records and a transcript, including the vital details. We have digitised a wide range of records, which means it is likely you will find multiple records for each student. You can copy all the information in the transcript or add it to your workspace for further research. The transcripts will provide a combination of the following facts:

  • Name
  • Birth year
  • Year of training
  • Address and subsequent addresses throughout life
  • School(s) of employment
  • Spouse’s last name
  • Marriage year
  • Number – these appear in the registers.
  • Archive and archive reference

The original images will reveal even more about your ancestor’s education and teaching career. The student registers show the students’ results and qualifications. The Rolls of Students was maintained by members of the Edge Hill Students' Guild as late as 1989. The all-female Gu

Discover more about these records

Imagine your ancestor stepping into Edge Hill College on 24 January 1885—one of just 41 women ready to claim a future that society barely allowed them. Founded by Liverpool philanthropists, Edge Hill was the very first teacher training college for women in England, and the only one where they could truly graduate. Its students wore the colours of the suffragette movement with pride, symbols of determination and hope.

By 1925, the college had outgrown its Liverpool site and was moved by Lancashire County Council to a new home in Ormskirk, where it settled in 1931. Today, with nearly 10,000 students, Edge Hill University is a thriving community. But for those tracing family history, it remains a place where grandmothers and great-grandmothers may have first raised their voices as educated women, determined to make their mark.

As the first non-denominational college for women, the students were of a wide range of religions, include but not limited to:

  • Church of England
  • Congregationalism
  • Wesleyian
  • Presbyterian
  • Baptist
  • Unitarian
  • United Methodist Church
  • Free Methodists/United Methodist Free
  • Calvinist Methodist (Presbyterian Church of Wales)
  • Methodist New Connection
  • Methodist
  • Primitive Methodist
  • Unitarian Methodist
  • Quaker / Friends
  • Christadelpian
  • Lady Huntingdon's Connection
  • Catholic Apostolic Church
  • Roman Catholic
  • Plymouth Brethern
  • Church of Christ
  • New Church
  • Swedenborgian
  • Christian Scientist
  • Latter Day Saints / Mormon
  • Morovian