In 1887, as the population of Reading reached 60,000, the Church Schools’ Company took over the privately owned Blenheim Ladies’ School and renamed it Reading High SchoolIn 1914 the School was then renamed The Abbey School in honour of Jane Austen, who had been a pupil at a ladies’ boarding school adjacent to Reading Abbey’s gateway in 1785/86. At the time when Jane Austen and her sister, Cassandra, attended the school it was led by a Mrs La Tournelle. Mrs La Tournelle had a cork leg.
