Where Are They Now?
Ann Peart (née Glithero, formerly Arthur) Class of '61

Ann left school in the spring of 1962 to read Geography  at New Hall, Cambridge. She was already deeply involved in her local Unitarian chapel, and had done some original research on the distribution of Unitarian congregations at the suggestion of Miss Leigh, who inspiringly taught both Geography and RE. At Cambridge she met the man she was to marry, and decided to opt for teaching as a career that would fit in with marriage and children, and keep chapel work as a voluntary activity.

It was only at the age of 40, divorced with two children, that Ann decided that the logical step would be to get paid for what she had chosen to do with her spare time, and trained as a Unitarian minister. After training part-time at Oxford, while still living and teaching in North London, she worked at Unitarian headquarters in the centre of London and combined this with a part-time ministry. In 1989 Ann changed to a full time ministry with a dynamic congregation in Golders Green London, but in 1995 moved back to Manchester with her then partner, accepting a part-time post as minister to a church in East Manchester.  Here she began some work on the history of Unitarian women, as a research fellow of Unitarian College, where, in 2001 she was appointed principal of the college:  probably the first woman principal of a a traditional theological college.

If Ann had known when she left school that she would end up working less than half a mile away, she would have been horrified, as she saw education as a stepping stone to experiencing the wider world, but she is delighted to be back in Manchester, with its lively cultural life and magnificent countryside.