Tributes have been paid to Britain’s first black female headteacher, who has died aged 81.

Just months before she died, Yvonne Conolly received top awards, including being made a CBE, and received praise from the prime minister, the education secretary and The Prince of Wales, who spoke of her “character and determination”.

But she faced hostility when she took over as headteacher of Ring Cross primary, in Holloway, North London, in 1969.

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Not only did someone threaten to burn down the school, she also received so many racist threats that she needed a bodyguard to go with her into work.

First female black headteacher ‘inspired a generation of educators’

But Ms Conolly stood firm in her leadership role, in which she not only inspired her pupils and staff but also a generation of educators to come.

Former Tes editor Ann Mroz, who presented Ms Conolly with the Tes services to education award at last year’s Tes Schools Awards, said: “She will be remembered as brave, wise and kind, and an inspiration to all those who followed in her courageous footsteps.”

Ms Conolly spoke to Tes at the end of last year about her career and how she was coping with terminal cancer by tackling it “on a daily basis”.

She told of how, at Ring Cross, she showed pupils that “we are all the same but different” by inviting her dentist, who was black, into school to give a talk.

She said: “The children all sat there and I could see everybody’s mouth was open. They couldn’t believe that a dentist was black.”

Ms Conollly later became a member of the multi-ethnic inspectorate created by the ILEA [Inner London Education Authority] in 1978, in which, she says, “we had to start from scratch”  with school policy, including looking at racism and anti-racism.

She said: “For the first time [we] looked at [the situation and said]: ‘My goodness, who are these children we are teaching? They speak different languages, they look different, we need resources for them.’”

Ms Conolly, who arrived in the UK in 1963 as part of the Windrush generation, later became an Ofsted inspector and was chair of the Caribbean Teachers’ Association.

A friend who knew her in later life said today: “The reality of her life not being celebrated until so late on shows there is something wrong with the system.

“It was complete injustice that it took 40 years for her to be recognised, but we mustn’t detract from the celebration of the great life she had. We need to celebrate her life. She was somebody who achieved a great deal.”

Prime minister Boris Johnson paid tribute to Ms Conolly last year during Black History Month, when she received the 2020 Honorary Fellowship of Education Award from the Naz Legacy Foundation, a charity that promotes excellence in education and positive integration into British society. 

Mr Johnson said: “Throughout her 40-year career she inspired and mentored not only her own charges but also a generation of educators…Yvonne received so many threats that she needed to take a bodyguard with her to school.”

Ms Conolly leaves a daughter and grandson.