Welham Girls' School is a private boarding school for girls located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
History
The school was founded by Hersilia Susie Oliphant, who had previously set up Welham Boys' School. She named the schools after her home village of Welham, Nottinghamshire in the United Kingdom.
She acquired a palatial estate called Nasreen adjacent to the boys' school to start a small boarding school for girls. There were no funds, staff, or school buildings. There were originally ten pupils. Oliphant recruited another English woman, Grace Mary Linnel, to run the boarding school for girls. Linnel became the founder principal of Welham Girls School, which started in 1957.
The school has been described in the The Economic Times as one of a group of "old, rich and popular schools — the Eton equivalents in India ... These boarding schools are a state of mind in themselves, an attitude which can’t be duplicated".
Extracurricular activities
The school hosts competitive events such as sports, craft, dramatics, music, dance and photography. Sports include basketball, hockey, swimming, badminton, lawn tennis, athletics, table tennis, karate, shooting and aerobics. The basketball team has won numerous tournaments and represented Uttrakhand at the national level. Several students have been chosen for the India camp as well.
Notable alumnae
Art
Madhu Jain, textile designer
Smriti Morarka, hand-weaving revivalist
Mrinalini Mukherjee, artist
Laila Tyabji, co-founder of Dastkar
Business
Devika Bulchandani, Global CEO, Ogilvy
Devyani Rana, vice-president of Coca-Cola India
Film
Kareena Kapoor, actress
Nitya Mehra, director and screenwriter
Deepa Mehta, film director
Shivani Rawat, producer
Sukhmani Sadana, actor and screenwriter
Priya Seth, cinematographer
Alankrita Shrivastava, screenwriter and film director
Indian Administrative Service
Neera Yadav, IAS officer
Journalism
Radhika Roy, co-founder and co-owner of NDTV
Tavleen Singh, non-fiction writer, journalist and columnist, Indian Express
Madhu Trehan, journalist and co-founder of Newslaundry
Law
Malavika Rajkotia, lawyer and activist
Literature
Advaita Kala, novelist and screenwriter
Deepti Kapoor, novelist
Politics and activism
Subhashini Ali, activist, president of the All India Democratic Women's Association Renuka Chowdhury, MP Rajya Sabha Priyanka Gandhi, politician Brinda Karat, Member of Parliament, Communist Party of India (Marxist) Meira Kumar, ex-presidential candidate and First Lady speaker of the Lok Sabha Mala Sen, writer and activist Ambika Soni, politician